The 'Uncrowned King of Ireland' and the Irish tenant farmer - 1880
"We’re a clatter of land-mad peasants afflicted with racial famine memories..."
This is how journalist Peter Murphy described us Irish in 2014 and like it or not, it's fairly accurate.
Land holds a special place in the national psyche of the Irish people and is common to all nationalities that have been historically denied free access to land for generations. The Irish experience is however, unique in it's loss. This lack of access to land and insecurity of tenancy combined with political inaction & mismanagement, 'laissez faire' economics, enforced serfdom, unjust land laws, poverty, eviction and allowing Malthusian theory to play out resulted in more than a million Irish dead of starvation between 1845 and 1852. A million more emigrated during the same period to form the Irish diaspora - the new Ireland overseas keeping a folk memory alive of genocide, deprivation, loss and above all, of those responsible for the catastrophe.
Ireland lost between 20 and 25% of its population within seven years to starvation, disease and emigration, and it's hardly surprising that land and land ownership as a means of survival became central in the Irish social, cultural and political psyche.
Following the Reformation & plantations of Ireland in the 16th Century, the majority of Irish were forcibly dispossessed. A vast segment of the populace were not only bereft of land, but also politically barred from ever attaining it. The fight over equitable treatment of land ownership which had been growing since the Famine, reached crisis point by 1880. Land was to be one of the chief grievances that fuelled a swelling wave of Irish nationalism, a wave which ultimately broke over the island in the first two decades of the 20th century leading eventually to political independence for Ireland from Britain.
Two dramatically different life stories during a pivotal year in Ireland - 1880, were those of the wealthy politician and land activist, Charles Stewart Parnell and an unknown tenant farmer from Mullaghroe near Ovens in Co. Cork; Denis Murphy.
Ruairi Lynch explores both Parnell and a distant relative, Denis Murphy's life story.
Almost a century and half ago in October 1880, tenant farmer Denis Murphy, working a farm holding in Mullaghroe, Ovens, Co. Cork (one of hundreds of tenants leasing land from George Patrick Percy Evans-Freke (1801-1889), the 7th Baron Lord Carbery & 3rd Baronet Evans-Freke of Castlefreke, Co. Cork ), received a letter:
This was a hurried, hand written invitation to Denis, dated (Monday) 4 October 1880, to attend a meeting in the Royal Victoria Hotel, Cork the following Saturday, 9 October to re-organise the Irish Land League in Cork and appoint officers.
This two page note was personally written by Charles Stewart Parnell, Member of Parliament for Cork and leader of the Home Rule League party (forerunner of the Irish Parliamentary Party), and at the time a veritable colossus of Irish politics, popularly regarded as 'The uncrowned King of Ireland'
This note, carefully pasted onto card by it's receipient in 1880, forms a direct link to a pivotal year, both for the well educated, wealthy landowning Protestant politician, Charles Stewart Parnell and the humbler Roman Catholic tenant farmer, Denis Murphy.
This two page note was personally written by Charles Stewart Parnell, Member of Parliament for Cork and leader of the Home Rule League party (forerunner of the Irish Parliamentary Party), and at the time a veritable colossus of Irish politics, popularly regarded as 'The uncrowned King of Ireland'
This note, carefully pasted onto card by it's receipient in 1880, forms a direct link to a pivotal year, both for the well educated, wealthy landowning Protestant politician, Charles Stewart Parnell and the humbler Roman Catholic tenant farmer, Denis Murphy.
At the time of writing, Parnell the politicians' continued meteoric rise to the pinnacle of parliamentary power in Ireland and Britain was virtually assured. But for the tenant farmer, the very class in Ireland that Parnell sought to protect from unjust and arbitrary land laws and the vagaries of land owners and agents, 1880 was to be remembered for another reason.
Widower Denis Murphy, along with his young family of four children, would be evicted from their farm in Mullagroe, Ovens - overnight losing means of income, land farmed for generations and their home.
To explore this event in a little more detail, we go back a generation to that of Denis's father, Patrick Denis Murphy and the Ireland of the late 1700s:
Widower Denis Murphy, along with his young family of four children, would be evicted from their farm in Mullagroe, Ovens - overnight losing means of income, land farmed for generations and their home.
To explore this event in a little more detail, we go back a generation to that of Denis's father, Patrick Denis Murphy and the Ireland of the late 1700s:
The first record that survives of the Murphy family is that of Patrick Denis Murphy, (1786-1870) born in Mullaghroe*, Athnowen, near Ovens, Co. Cork, son of an unrecorded tenant farmer and brother of Bartholomew Martin Murphy (1798-1883).
* from the Irish 'Mullach Rua' - red-ridge.
As a tenant farmer, Patrick's unnamed father rented land from the extensive Munster landed estate owner, Sir John Evans-Freke (d.1807), 1st Baronet Evans-Freke of Castle Freke, West Cork.
The landed estate at the time, was the centre of the rural economy in Ireland and a close relationship between landlord and tenant was the basis of the land system. The landlord was more than just the owner of the lands and collector of rents, he was also expected to fulfil certain duties such as the providing of relief and employment in bad times. The tenant was in return expected to pay the rent promptly and in full and to make improvements to the land or agricultural practices. Naturally, this relationship was prone to friction when the economic or political climate was unfavourable to tenants' well-being.
As with all tenant farmers, in addition to rent and other obligations to the local landlord, Murphy and his successors were also obliged to pay taxes to both the 'established' Church of Ireland and the British government of Ireland.
All Irish tenant farmers were not permitted to own land or retain any lease rights, they had no vote, no security and possibly for a time, lived barely above subsistence, dependent on the vagaries of both the climate and the landlord or his agent.
"1.5% of the population owned 33.7% of the island of Ireland , and 50% of the country was in the hands of only 750 families - most absentee."
Winstanley, M. J. (1984). Ireland and the Land Question 1800-1922. London: Methuen
A survey of the Freke estates in County Cork was made in 1787/88 by the noted 18th-century Dublin land surveyor Thomas Sherrard. These surveyed lands stretched from Durrus at the mouth of Dunmanus Bay in West Cork up to Ballincollig near Cork City and consisted of maps of 46 townlands covering 15,000 acres of land — later to become known as the Carbery estate after Sir John Freke inherited the title of Lord Carbery on the death of his cousin, Sir John Evans-Freke in 1807.
Surveys like this were frequently commissioned by estate owners, particularly in the second half of the eighteenth century when there was a vibrant school of Irish land surveyors who, driven by a competitive environment, were producing high-quality documents for both functional and ornamental purposes.
While some tenants and house owners are listed in this survey, the majority of agricultural tenants (including the Murphys of Mullaghroe) were not.
* from the Irish 'Mullach Rua' - red-ridge.
As a tenant farmer, Patrick's unnamed father rented land from the extensive Munster landed estate owner, Sir John Evans-Freke (d.1807), 1st Baronet Evans-Freke of Castle Freke, West Cork.
The landed estate at the time, was the centre of the rural economy in Ireland and a close relationship between landlord and tenant was the basis of the land system. The landlord was more than just the owner of the lands and collector of rents, he was also expected to fulfil certain duties such as the providing of relief and employment in bad times. The tenant was in return expected to pay the rent promptly and in full and to make improvements to the land or agricultural practices. Naturally, this relationship was prone to friction when the economic or political climate was unfavourable to tenants' well-being.
As with all tenant farmers, in addition to rent and other obligations to the local landlord, Murphy and his successors were also obliged to pay taxes to both the 'established' Church of Ireland and the British government of Ireland.
All Irish tenant farmers were not permitted to own land or retain any lease rights, they had no vote, no security and possibly for a time, lived barely above subsistence, dependent on the vagaries of both the climate and the landlord or his agent.
"1.5% of the population owned 33.7% of the island of Ireland , and 50% of the country was in the hands of only 750 families - most absentee."
Winstanley, M. J. (1984). Ireland and the Land Question 1800-1922. London: Methuen
A survey of the Freke estates in County Cork was made in 1787/88 by the noted 18th-century Dublin land surveyor Thomas Sherrard. These surveyed lands stretched from Durrus at the mouth of Dunmanus Bay in West Cork up to Ballincollig near Cork City and consisted of maps of 46 townlands covering 15,000 acres of land — later to become known as the Carbery estate after Sir John Freke inherited the title of Lord Carbery on the death of his cousin, Sir John Evans-Freke in 1807.
Surveys like this were frequently commissioned by estate owners, particularly in the second half of the eighteenth century when there was a vibrant school of Irish land surveyors who, driven by a competitive environment, were producing high-quality documents for both functional and ornamental purposes.
While some tenants and house owners are listed in this survey, the majority of agricultural tenants (including the Murphys of Mullaghroe) were not.
Map of the 1787/88 survey of Mullaghroe, Ballynamanagh & Walshstown townlands, Ovens, part of the estate of Sir John Freke of Castle Freke.
Surveyed and made by the noted 18th-century Dublin land surveyor Thomas Sherrard. Thanks to the Dean & Chapter of St. Fachtna's Cathederal, Rosscarbery & Corpus of Electronic Texts (CELT) University College Cork.
View the 1787/88 Freke Estate Survey here: Freke Estate (Cork) Survey of 1787/88 by Thomas Sherrard
An interesting history of 18th Century Irish maps, surveyors and mapmaking here: History Ireland Spring 1997
Patrick married Anne Wall on a date unknown. Their first child, Mary, was born in 1816, quickly followed by Denis (1817), Jane, Ellen and Daniel (1818-1819), William (1824), Michael (1829) and finally, George (1835).
Patrick is first identified at this address in 1827 through the Tithe Applotment Books for the area, as a tenant farmer working c.148 acres of land owned by Sir John Evans-Freke (1765-1844), 6th Baron Carbery (1807-1844) of Castle Freke near Rosscarbery, Co. Cork.
Tithe Applotment Books were compiled in Ireland between 1823 and 1837 in order to determine the amount which occupiers of agricultural holdings over one acre should pay in tithes to the Church of Ireland (the main Protestant church and the church established by the State until its dis-establishment in 1871). A tithe was a tax equating to one-tenth of farm production - due from each occupier of land, regardless of his/her religion, to support the clergy of the (Protestant) Church of Ireland.
Originally, the tax was paid by the farmer in produce, but in 1823 the Tithe Composition Act was introduced which allowed tithes to be paid in cash, a practice that had already become quite widespread. The tithe was calculated on the average production per acre of oats and wheat and sale price of these between 1816 and 1823. Quite apart from the obvious dislike for paying hard-earned cash to what the majority considered an 'alien' church, the tithe was particularly hated among Catholic tenant farmers because the poor (as ever) bore the brunt. In addition to paying rent to the local landlord to farm the land, an additional tenth of production went to another church. Indeed, some wealthy landowners didn't pay anything while most tenants had to pay even though they farmed little more than a tiny potato patch. By the end of the 1820s, anger about these inequalities had reached a new level which led to The Tithe War (Irish: Cogadh na nDeachúna), a campaign of mainly nonviolent civil disobedience, punctuated by sporadic violent episodes in Ireland between 1830 and 1836.
Below: From the 1827 Tithe Applotment Book for the townland of Mullagroe in the parish of Athnowen, Co. Cork, the 41 year old Patrick is noted as farming a substantial 148 Acres, 1 Rood of land of which 147 acres & 1 rood is good, productive land (one acre of wasteland.) The land was then valued at £100-2-2 (one hundred pounds, two shillings and two pence) of which a tenth, or the tithe, payable to the local Church of Ireland parish annually was £10-6-6 (ten pounds, six shillings and sixpence or about £1,233 in 2022 values). That tithe was in addition to land rental, payable to Lord Carbery.
Patrick is first identified at this address in 1827 through the Tithe Applotment Books for the area, as a tenant farmer working c.148 acres of land owned by Sir John Evans-Freke (1765-1844), 6th Baron Carbery (1807-1844) of Castle Freke near Rosscarbery, Co. Cork.
Tithe Applotment Books were compiled in Ireland between 1823 and 1837 in order to determine the amount which occupiers of agricultural holdings over one acre should pay in tithes to the Church of Ireland (the main Protestant church and the church established by the State until its dis-establishment in 1871). A tithe was a tax equating to one-tenth of farm production - due from each occupier of land, regardless of his/her religion, to support the clergy of the (Protestant) Church of Ireland.
Originally, the tax was paid by the farmer in produce, but in 1823 the Tithe Composition Act was introduced which allowed tithes to be paid in cash, a practice that had already become quite widespread. The tithe was calculated on the average production per acre of oats and wheat and sale price of these between 1816 and 1823. Quite apart from the obvious dislike for paying hard-earned cash to what the majority considered an 'alien' church, the tithe was particularly hated among Catholic tenant farmers because the poor (as ever) bore the brunt. In addition to paying rent to the local landlord to farm the land, an additional tenth of production went to another church. Indeed, some wealthy landowners didn't pay anything while most tenants had to pay even though they farmed little more than a tiny potato patch. By the end of the 1820s, anger about these inequalities had reached a new level which led to The Tithe War (Irish: Cogadh na nDeachúna), a campaign of mainly nonviolent civil disobedience, punctuated by sporadic violent episodes in Ireland between 1830 and 1836.
Below: From the 1827 Tithe Applotment Book for the townland of Mullagroe in the parish of Athnowen, Co. Cork, the 41 year old Patrick is noted as farming a substantial 148 Acres, 1 Rood of land of which 147 acres & 1 rood is good, productive land (one acre of wasteland.) The land was then valued at £100-2-2 (one hundred pounds, two shillings and two pence) of which a tenth, or the tithe, payable to the local Church of Ireland parish annually was £10-6-6 (ten pounds, six shillings and sixpence or about £1,233 in 2022 values). That tithe was in addition to land rental, payable to Lord Carbery.
As to the social conditions in Ireland in the early 1840s, (just before the Famine) a future British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli described the 'Irish Question' at the time as:
A dense population, in extreme distress, inhabit an island where there is an Established Church, which is not their Church, and a territorial aristocracy the richest of whom live in foreign capitals. Thus you have a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church; and in addition the weakest executive in the world. That is the Irish Question. |
Within a year of that assessment, the Great Famine of 1845–1851 went on to kill upward of 1 million Irish men, women, and children, and force another million to migrate, mostly to the United States & Britain. Poor handling by the British government left distrust and hatred in its wake. The view in Ireland was that the combination of British laissez faire policies, which permitted food exports from Ireland, and protectionist Corn Laws, which prevented import of low cost wheat, had been a major factor in the famine, and that a Dublin based, independent Irish government (rather than the London parliament) could have mitigated it.
The Frekes of Castle Freke
Denis Murphy rented lands owned by Sir John Evans Freke (1765-1844), 6th Baron Carbery (1807-1844) of Castle Freke near Rosscarbery, Co. Cork. Sir John represented the nearby borough of Donegal (Donegal, Skibbereen that is) in the Dublin parliament; the Irish House of Commons and succeeded to the titles and lands in 1807. One of the largest holders of land in Ireland, he resided much of his life in the manor house in Castle Freke. A staunch Unionist to the end, he directed in his will that the principal family seat and residence should be the Castle and that his inheritor should reside there at least four months in the year. He further stipulated that if his inheritor was to convert to Roman Catholicism at any stage, the interest in the estate would cease and go to the next in line provided such party was of the Protestant faith. He also left the revenue from rental of estates to his wife, cousin Catherine Charlotte Saunders (1756-1852), for life.
With no male heir, the title and lands passed to George Patrick Percy Evans Freke, his nephew in 1844 - that was except for the substantial rent payments from tenant farmers which continued to go to his aunt, Catherine, dowager Lady Carbery.
During the Famine, Lady Carbery became known for her benevolence towards her tenants.
Here's an excerpt from the Cork Examiner of November 27, 1846:
With no male heir, the title and lands passed to George Patrick Percy Evans Freke, his nephew in 1844 - that was except for the substantial rent payments from tenant farmers which continued to go to his aunt, Catherine, dowager Lady Carbery.
During the Famine, Lady Carbery became known for her benevolence towards her tenants.
Here's an excerpt from the Cork Examiner of November 27, 1846:
IT is understood that Lady Carbery, widow of the late Lord Carbery, in consideration of the loss her tenants have sustained this year, intends to make no demand for rent on her extensive estates in this county. She has even, it appears, intimated her intention, should any sums be received, not to appropriate any portion to her personal use, but to reserve the amount in trust for purposes of benevolence. This distinguished act of generosity is said to be only in accordance with the conduct, invariably kind and humane, which has characterized this excellent lady in the management of her property.
Lady Carbery's nephew, the 7th Baron Lord Carbery, was not quite so generous.
George Patrick Percy Evans-Freke (1801-1889), 7th Baron Lord Carbery & 3rd Baronet Evans-Freke of Castlefreke, Co. Cork (1845-1889). Born in Wexford, he inherited the title and lands on his uncle's death in 1844. He married Harriet Maria Catherine Shuldman in 1852 in Cork following the death of his aunt and later had one child; Georgina Dorothea Harriet Evans-Freke (1853-1942). Georgina later married the 4th Earl of Bandon in 1876, becoming Countess of Bandon. The 7th Baron was a cantankerous individual by all accounts, possibly as he was a deaf-mute and communicated using pen, paper and a slate. As largely an absentee landlord based in London, except for a summer residency in Castle Freke under the terms of his uncle's will, the Baron gladly delegated management of the large estate to local land agents.
Social memory certainly casts a dark shadow on the character of the Irish Land Agent, that they were capricious 'tormentors of the tenantry' and "they were devils one and all‟. In 1880, William Carleton was even more condemnatory of agents in general when he wrote that "a history of their conduct would be a black catalogue of dishonesty, oppression and treachery‟.
A Land Agent's primary interest was the collection of rent rather than management of the land - after all, that was how they earned their living - on commission from rents received. In addition, agents controlled the day to day management of the estate, setting rents, compiling & writing various reports to landowners, dealing with leases, correspondence, accounts, ensuring tenants carried out stipulations made in their leases such as growing of certain crops, planting of trees etc and increasingly, seizure of goods in lieu of rent, instruction of legal action to recover rent and the much feared and dreaded, evictions.
In 1847 the Devon Commission found that "nearly all witnesses concur in considering the duties of an agent to be extensive and most important in their nature; but a large majority state that the collection of rent is the chief duty, and many, that it is the only duty generally fulfilled"
Paying the Landlord's Rent. These illustrations appeared in The Graphic Magazine, June 1870 describing the tenant farmer's 'Gale day' or day on which advance rent was paid to the local landlord (left) usually on May 1st and/or November 1st annually.
These late Victorian drawings illustrate the social gulf between tenant and their 'natural superiors' & that any sign of prosperity inevitably resulted in a rent increase - on the left, the tenant couple negotiating and paying the rent: "...their tongues are ready with a lamentable list of misfortunes as a vivid imagination can invent. Frost and blight have withered the crops, the murrain has fallen on their cattle, the rot has seized their sheep, the measles have destroyed their pigs, and in fine, there is no rent "sorra ha'porth". But there beside the agent is their natural enemy the bailiff, and it is to be a contest of wits between their protestations and shabby wardrobes and his figures; blarney sometimes getting the better of facts, sometimes being lamentably routed..."
On the right is an image of the same couple the following Sunday: " The question of rent, on the present occasion, we may presume, has been settled; the bailiff has carried his point and the money has been produced, or the tenant has cajoled the steward into an abatement, or postponement, or what not; at any rate the evil day is past, and the tenant can appear without danger in his decent habit, which, by the time rent-day comes round once more, with its sorrows and anxieties, will be as pitifully ragged as ever."
This was the reality for most tenant farmers including my own Great-Grandmother Margaret Lynch (nee Murphy, a niece of Patrick Denis Murphy) right into the 20th Century. Family history has it that she always made a point of paying the rent to the local landlord in the worst clothing she could find and with lamentable tales of poor harvests, diseased livestock and dreadful weather.
These late Victorian drawings illustrate the social gulf between tenant and their 'natural superiors' & that any sign of prosperity inevitably resulted in a rent increase - on the left, the tenant couple negotiating and paying the rent: "...their tongues are ready with a lamentable list of misfortunes as a vivid imagination can invent. Frost and blight have withered the crops, the murrain has fallen on their cattle, the rot has seized their sheep, the measles have destroyed their pigs, and in fine, there is no rent "sorra ha'porth". But there beside the agent is their natural enemy the bailiff, and it is to be a contest of wits between their protestations and shabby wardrobes and his figures; blarney sometimes getting the better of facts, sometimes being lamentably routed..."
On the right is an image of the same couple the following Sunday: " The question of rent, on the present occasion, we may presume, has been settled; the bailiff has carried his point and the money has been produced, or the tenant has cajoled the steward into an abatement, or postponement, or what not; at any rate the evil day is past, and the tenant can appear without danger in his decent habit, which, by the time rent-day comes round once more, with its sorrows and anxieties, will be as pitifully ragged as ever."
This was the reality for most tenant farmers including my own Great-Grandmother Margaret Lynch (nee Murphy, a niece of Patrick Denis Murphy) right into the 20th Century. Family history has it that she always made a point of paying the rent to the local landlord in the worst clothing she could find and with lamentable tales of poor harvests, diseased livestock and dreadful weather.
Patrick Murphy next appears in a 4 September 1848 entry in the 'House Books' of the Valuation Office Books (1824-1856)
House Books of the Valuation Office are manuscript books in which information on houses and buildings in Ireland were recorded & date between 1833 and the mid-1850s, made as valuation work was carried out for the Primary (or Griffith's) Valuation, county by county. Griffith's Valuation was a survey carried out in Ireland to determine both tenant and landlord liability to pay the Poor rate for each Poor Law Union area (for the support of the poor and destitute).
Patrick Murphy's residence and farm buildings were inspected and recorded in September 1848 and their entry shows the type of building and the standard these were in at the time. Each building's length, breadth and height were included as are calculations used to determine the rateable valuation. A ‘measure’ was defined as 10 square feet and the figure in the ‘No. of measures’ column comprises the previous figures multiplied together and divided by 10. The ‘Rate per measure’ was determined by the quality letter. From this code, we can establish that Patrick's residence, piggery, Stable, Cow House and Barn were all slated building built with stone or brick and lime mortar - old but in repair. The 'Muck House' however, was thatched, having stone walls, with mud or puddle mortar, dry stone walls pointed, or good mud walls - slightly decayed. In all probability, this was the original residence that over the years had been vacated and put to another use. Patrick Murphy was assessed to have a building valuation of £8-12-2 (Eight pounds, twelve shillings and two pence - or around £1,140 in 2022 values) which would have been added to land values. This total would then be the rateable value applicable to the Poor Law Union for the Ovens area (payable to the Macroom Poor Law Union area).
House Books of the Valuation Office are manuscript books in which information on houses and buildings in Ireland were recorded & date between 1833 and the mid-1850s, made as valuation work was carried out for the Primary (or Griffith's) Valuation, county by county. Griffith's Valuation was a survey carried out in Ireland to determine both tenant and landlord liability to pay the Poor rate for each Poor Law Union area (for the support of the poor and destitute).
Patrick Murphy's residence and farm buildings were inspected and recorded in September 1848 and their entry shows the type of building and the standard these were in at the time. Each building's length, breadth and height were included as are calculations used to determine the rateable valuation. A ‘measure’ was defined as 10 square feet and the figure in the ‘No. of measures’ column comprises the previous figures multiplied together and divided by 10. The ‘Rate per measure’ was determined by the quality letter. From this code, we can establish that Patrick's residence, piggery, Stable, Cow House and Barn were all slated building built with stone or brick and lime mortar - old but in repair. The 'Muck House' however, was thatched, having stone walls, with mud or puddle mortar, dry stone walls pointed, or good mud walls - slightly decayed. In all probability, this was the original residence that over the years had been vacated and put to another use. Patrick Murphy was assessed to have a building valuation of £8-12-2 (Eight pounds, twelve shillings and two pence - or around £1,140 in 2022 values) which would have been added to land values. This total would then be the rateable value applicable to the Poor Law Union for the Ovens area (payable to the Macroom Poor Law Union area).
Officialdom caught up with Patrick again a few years later in 1852, with the publication of Griffith's Valuation.
Griffith's Valuation covered who owned what & where but also who rented what & where in mid 19th Century Ireland, and assessed the value on which each identifiable 'parcel' of land and/or property should be taxed. While not a Census, it does identify the head of each household but no other family information. The very poorest i.e. those who lived on the verge of vagrancy in makeshift or temporary hovels were also excluded. The Valuation is arranged by county, barony, Poor Law Union, civil parish and townland.
In 1851, Patrick & his family are noted as living in Mullagroe House and leasing some 154 acres from Lady Carbery, while also subletting the following:
Griffith's Valuation covered who owned what & where but also who rented what & where in mid 19th Century Ireland, and assessed the value on which each identifiable 'parcel' of land and/or property should be taxed. While not a Census, it does identify the head of each household but no other family information. The very poorest i.e. those who lived on the verge of vagrancy in makeshift or temporary hovels were also excluded. The Valuation is arranged by county, barony, Poor Law Union, civil parish and townland.
In 1851, Patrick & his family are noted as living in Mullagroe House and leasing some 154 acres from Lady Carbery, while also subletting the following:
House to John Herlihy
House and garden to Denis Mullane
House, smithy and garden to Timothy Murphy (unknown if this is a relative or otherwise)
House to Daniel Murphy (possibly his son, Daniel Walter Murphy (1819-1894)?)
The total assessed valuation of lands & houses rented from Lady Carbery for the Poor Rate in 1852 came to £95 (or around £14,740 in 2022 values). From this figure an average Poor Law Rate was struck annually. If averaged at around one shilling per pound valuation, the annual fee due to the Macroom Union by Patrick in 1852 would be almost £5 (£730 in 2022 values)
House and garden to Denis Mullane
House, smithy and garden to Timothy Murphy (unknown if this is a relative or otherwise)
House to Daniel Murphy (possibly his son, Daniel Walter Murphy (1819-1894)?)
The total assessed valuation of lands & houses rented from Lady Carbery for the Poor Rate in 1852 came to £95 (or around £14,740 in 2022 values). From this figure an average Poor Law Rate was struck annually. If averaged at around one shilling per pound valuation, the annual fee due to the Macroom Union by Patrick in 1852 would be almost £5 (£730 in 2022 values)
By the time of the Griffith's Valuation in 1852, most of Patrick's daughters had been married off and younger sons were shortly to emigrate - undoubtedly due to economic necessity. Daniel Walter, a civil engineer, had emigrated to Boston and youngest brother, George, a carpenter, followed - later joining the Union Army, to fight & survive the American Civil War between 1860-64 (despite participating in appalling battles with The Army of the Potomac & capture by Confederate forces) before becoming a police officer in Boston and later Truant Officer for the Public Schools system in the city.
- Daniel Walter Murphy's family details appear in an article here.
- Four generations of the Murphy family were Catholic priests, serving in Cork, Youghal, Kentucky (USA), The Potteries (UK) and Massachusetts with a stint in Cuba during the Spanish-American War of 1898. Details in an article here.
- The Murphy & Hawkes family of Knockanemore family details appear in an article here.
- George Murphy's life story is currently under research (April 2023) and will be uploaded with a link here
Denis had remained farming the family holding in Ovens with his father, simply by virtue of birth order - the eldest male traditionally took over the family land holding.
Below: Guy's County and City of Cork Directory 1875-1876 entry for Ovens.
In the principal landholders section appears both Denis Murphy (58) of Mullaghroe and his uncle, Bartholomew Martin Murphy (77) of Knockanemore.
Source: https://archive.org/details/francisguyscount00guycuoft/page/viii/mode/1up?view=theater
In Ireland between 1850 and 1870, agricultural production had improved, eviction rates were low and the general standard of living had risen. Denis would have taken over the holding from his father sometime between the mid 1850s and December 1870 when Patrick died. However, within a few years, the family's financial position and social standing was to change.
This change began in the late 1870s, when a combination of bad weather due to climactic conditions (including the El Nino phenomenon) resulted in poor harvests which coinciding with falling prices due to an economic depression throughout Europe gave rise to an agricultural crisis in Ireland.
Tenant farmers on larger holdings such as Denis Murphy, who had successfully transitioned to commercial farming, weather and market conditions resulted in a significant loss of earnings. Farmers struggled through for the most part, but difficulties were compounded by a harsh winter in 1877, followed by two further years of unusually severe weather. It didn't end there however - high rainfall in 1879 led to a blighted crop and yet another poor grain harvest.
Many tenant farmers after three disastrous years, were now facing an inability to pay rent to their local landowner. There were more serious consequences, however, for the subsistence farmers and agricultural labourers in remote rural areas who had no monetary reserves or access to loans to purchase food in times of scarcity. For them, the potato was still essential for survival and were extremely vulnerable to the effects of the prolonged severe weather conditions and localised small-scale famines in the late 1870s.
When the subsistence economy broke down, the only recourse for many of the impoverished rural poor to whom banks refused to lend, was to access credit from moneylenders or pawnbrokers. The infamous 'gombeen man’, many of whom doubled as publicans and shopkeepers, lived among the people and exploited to the fullest degree the lack of regulation and supervision governing their activities in remote and isolated rural areas. This informal and exploitative lending sector thrived between the 1860s and the 1890s, but because the extension of credit was ‘off the books’, their locations and the extent of their activities have largely not been recorded.
For all landholders in Ireland, an inability to pay land rent, loans and to raise funds could only result in eviction, loss of home, land and ability to make a living. Starvation, the workhouse or emigration soon followed.
Soon, political agitation, proven or suspected, would also become grounds for the eviction of tenant farmers.
This change began in the late 1870s, when a combination of bad weather due to climactic conditions (including the El Nino phenomenon) resulted in poor harvests which coinciding with falling prices due to an economic depression throughout Europe gave rise to an agricultural crisis in Ireland.
Tenant farmers on larger holdings such as Denis Murphy, who had successfully transitioned to commercial farming, weather and market conditions resulted in a significant loss of earnings. Farmers struggled through for the most part, but difficulties were compounded by a harsh winter in 1877, followed by two further years of unusually severe weather. It didn't end there however - high rainfall in 1879 led to a blighted crop and yet another poor grain harvest.
Many tenant farmers after three disastrous years, were now facing an inability to pay rent to their local landowner. There were more serious consequences, however, for the subsistence farmers and agricultural labourers in remote rural areas who had no monetary reserves or access to loans to purchase food in times of scarcity. For them, the potato was still essential for survival and were extremely vulnerable to the effects of the prolonged severe weather conditions and localised small-scale famines in the late 1870s.
When the subsistence economy broke down, the only recourse for many of the impoverished rural poor to whom banks refused to lend, was to access credit from moneylenders or pawnbrokers. The infamous 'gombeen man’, many of whom doubled as publicans and shopkeepers, lived among the people and exploited to the fullest degree the lack of regulation and supervision governing their activities in remote and isolated rural areas. This informal and exploitative lending sector thrived between the 1860s and the 1890s, but because the extension of credit was ‘off the books’, their locations and the extent of their activities have largely not been recorded.
For all landholders in Ireland, an inability to pay land rent, loans and to raise funds could only result in eviction, loss of home, land and ability to make a living. Starvation, the workhouse or emigration soon followed.
Soon, political agitation, proven or suspected, would also become grounds for the eviction of tenant farmers.
Poor Ireland. AH. Source: Fun (28 March 1868): 29. Courtesy of the HathiTrust Digital Library and the University of Minnesota.
Various political figures surround the young woman who represents Ireland and offer their solutions to the Irish issue. Gladstone (second figure from left) ponders the situation and offers “generous treatment.” Disraeli sits at the young woman’s side, holding her wrist, while John Stuart Mill (who stands in front of John Bright) offers his cure. To the right at the back, one of those present is suggesting 'complete isolation'.
By 1879, one of the largest conflicts in Irish history which had been simmering for decades, erupted on the issue of land and landownership. For the first time, the authority of Anglo-Irish landlords to control the land in Ireland was questioned and challenged & by 1883, a popular mass movement had dealt a fatal blow to rural landlordism in Ireland while also transforming the careers and profiles of several Irish political and social figures.
Contrasting the life of Denis Murphy, the Cork tenant farmer in Ireland of the late 1870s, was Charles Stewart Parnell, the third son and seventh child of the wealthy Anglo-Irish landowner, John Henry Parnell (1811–1859), and his American wife Delia Tudor Stewart (1816–1898).
Contrasting the life of Denis Murphy, the Cork tenant farmer in Ireland of the late 1870s, was Charles Stewart Parnell, the third son and seventh child of the wealthy Anglo-Irish landowner, John Henry Parnell (1811–1859), and his American wife Delia Tudor Stewart (1816–1898).
"No one man has ever disturbed the scene of British democratic politics so profoundly or for so long as the Irish Protestant Landlord, Charles Stewart Parnell…he helped bring about a great social revolution in British history; the change in relations between landlord and tenant in Ireland. He also raised popular Irish national feeling to the most effective level it had achieved in a demand for Home Rule for all Ireland .." "Parnell was a tragic hero in the classic Shakespearean mould: a man whose character propelled him to greatness and yet whose character ultimately brought about his destruction." |
Born in Avondale House, Co. Wicklow in 1846, the seventh of eleven children, Charles Stewart Parnell, according to historian Robert Kee, inherited a 'hereditary streak of natural opposition to English government in Ireland' … his politically non-conformist Great-Grandfather had been a member of the Irish Volunteers, the next generation supported Catholic emancipation and his mother, Delia Stewart was the daughter of an American Admiral who had 'whipped the British' in the War of 1812 and was reportedly, "quite sympathetic" towards Fenianism.
Delia never quite settled into life in Wicklow, spending much time in Paris and the United States, separated from her husband when Parnell was six. At this young age, the boy was packed off to different schools in England, where he spent an unhappy youth. His father, John Henry Parnell died in 1859 and aged 13, Charles inherited the Avondale estate. He later went on to study mathematics at Magdalene College, Cambridge (1865–69) but, due to both the troubled financial circumstances of the family estate and his own misbehaviour, he was absent a great deal and never completed his degree.
Delia never quite settled into life in Wicklow, spending much time in Paris and the United States, separated from her husband when Parnell was six. At this young age, the boy was packed off to different schools in England, where he spent an unhappy youth. His father, John Henry Parnell died in 1859 and aged 13, Charles inherited the Avondale estate. He later went on to study mathematics at Magdalene College, Cambridge (1865–69) but, due to both the troubled financial circumstances of the family estate and his own misbehaviour, he was absent a great deal and never completed his degree.
Returning to Avondale, Co. Wicklow, the young Parnell became noted as an 'improving landowner' who played an important part in dealing fairly with his tenants and opening the south Wicklow area to industrialisation, forrestry & mining. In 1874, he became High Sheriff of Wicklow, with judicial, electoral, ceremonial and administrative functions and was also an officer in the Wicklow militia.
Parnell was now drawn to the theme beginning to dominate the Irish political scene in the mid-1870s; Home Rule or self-government for Ireland. Home Rule was the demand that the governance of Ireland be returned from Westminster to a domestic parliament in Ireland while remaining an integral part of the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland.
Ireland had had its own parliament up to 1800 when the Act of Union ended Irish representation at the parliament sitting at College Green in Dublin. Under the Union, MPs elected for Irish constituencies went to Westminster and sat alongside English, Scottish, and Welsh MPs in a legislature that had jurisdiction over the whole of both islands as well as the colonies of the British Empire.
The idea of Home Rule dated from 1870 but was part of a much longer tradition which aimed at revising the Anglo-Irish relationship by constitutional methods. The first attempt to repeal the Act of Union was made by Daniel O’Connell in the 1840s. This was ultimately a failure and Irish politics in the mid-nineteenth century was dominated by MPs acting as Irish representatives of the Liberal and Tory parties.
In 1870, Isaac Butt, a Dublin barrister and former Tory MP, founded the Irish Home Government Association. The movement combined a powerful cross section of progressive landowners, tenant rights activists, and supporters and sympathisers of the failed Fenian uprising of 1867 to create a third way in Irish politics. By 1873, styled as the Home Rule League, Butt’s nascent political grouping succeeded in gaining the loose allegiance of 59 out of 103 Irish MPs.
The Home Rule League members were mainly of an Irish aristocratic or gentry Church of Ireland background and campaigned for a moderate degree of self-government in Ireland, land reform, release of Fenian political prisoners and denominational education.
In the 1874 general election, Parnell was selected as a Home Rule League candidate for County Dublin five days after joining the party, but while the party won 60 out of 101 Irish seats in the Disraeli led Conservative majority Parliament, Parnell, even with the strong backing of the Home Rule leaders, ran a poor campaign and was soundly beaten by his Conservative opponent.
The 1874 election turned out to be historic, with Home Rule League members becoming the first Irish nationalist MPs elected and also becoming the first significant third party in Parliament. This gain has been attributed to the effects of the Secret Ballot Act of 1872, as tenants now faced less of a threat of eviction if they voted against the directions of their landlord.
Undeterred by his loss, the 29 year old Parnell continued to attend Home Rule meetings and maintained good relations with Butt. In April 1875, a seat opened in County Meath and Parnell decided to contest it for the Home Rule League. This time he proved more adept at campaigning and more comfortable speaking before crowds. He called not only for Home Rule but for better treatment for Ireland’s tenant farmers and warned that the Irish might very well take up arms if the British government continued to ignore their concerns. Parnell’s defiant stance appealed to many voters and enabled him to defeat his Conservative opponent. His seventeen year political career began, but, as Enoch Powell put it almost a century later:
“All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.”
Parnell's political career was to be meteoric - both in it's ascent and descent but ultimately to end in abject failure.
Parnell was now drawn to the theme beginning to dominate the Irish political scene in the mid-1870s; Home Rule or self-government for Ireland. Home Rule was the demand that the governance of Ireland be returned from Westminster to a domestic parliament in Ireland while remaining an integral part of the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland.
Ireland had had its own parliament up to 1800 when the Act of Union ended Irish representation at the parliament sitting at College Green in Dublin. Under the Union, MPs elected for Irish constituencies went to Westminster and sat alongside English, Scottish, and Welsh MPs in a legislature that had jurisdiction over the whole of both islands as well as the colonies of the British Empire.
The idea of Home Rule dated from 1870 but was part of a much longer tradition which aimed at revising the Anglo-Irish relationship by constitutional methods. The first attempt to repeal the Act of Union was made by Daniel O’Connell in the 1840s. This was ultimately a failure and Irish politics in the mid-nineteenth century was dominated by MPs acting as Irish representatives of the Liberal and Tory parties.
In 1870, Isaac Butt, a Dublin barrister and former Tory MP, founded the Irish Home Government Association. The movement combined a powerful cross section of progressive landowners, tenant rights activists, and supporters and sympathisers of the failed Fenian uprising of 1867 to create a third way in Irish politics. By 1873, styled as the Home Rule League, Butt’s nascent political grouping succeeded in gaining the loose allegiance of 59 out of 103 Irish MPs.
The Home Rule League members were mainly of an Irish aristocratic or gentry Church of Ireland background and campaigned for a moderate degree of self-government in Ireland, land reform, release of Fenian political prisoners and denominational education.
In the 1874 general election, Parnell was selected as a Home Rule League candidate for County Dublin five days after joining the party, but while the party won 60 out of 101 Irish seats in the Disraeli led Conservative majority Parliament, Parnell, even with the strong backing of the Home Rule leaders, ran a poor campaign and was soundly beaten by his Conservative opponent.
The 1874 election turned out to be historic, with Home Rule League members becoming the first Irish nationalist MPs elected and also becoming the first significant third party in Parliament. This gain has been attributed to the effects of the Secret Ballot Act of 1872, as tenants now faced less of a threat of eviction if they voted against the directions of their landlord.
Undeterred by his loss, the 29 year old Parnell continued to attend Home Rule meetings and maintained good relations with Butt. In April 1875, a seat opened in County Meath and Parnell decided to contest it for the Home Rule League. This time he proved more adept at campaigning and more comfortable speaking before crowds. He called not only for Home Rule but for better treatment for Ireland’s tenant farmers and warned that the Irish might very well take up arms if the British government continued to ignore their concerns. Parnell’s defiant stance appealed to many voters and enabled him to defeat his Conservative opponent. His seventeen year political career began, but, as Enoch Powell put it almost a century later:
“All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.”
Parnell's political career was to be meteoric - both in it's ascent and descent but ultimately to end in abject failure.
Click images above for biographies
Parnell's Political Career
Over his seventeen year political career (1874-1891), Charles Stewart Parnell was to achieve greater political influence than any Irish Member of Parliament before him. He led the Home Rule League Party (renamed the Irish Parliamentary Party in 1882) which sought Home Rule for Ireland, and presided over the Irish National Land League, which battled landlords and their agents for more equitable treatment for Ireland’s tenant farmers.
"The story of Ireland, and of Parnell, dominates the 1880s, and this political genius, this inspired visionary, seems all the more impressive with the years...his finely attuned political intelligence and quite extraordinary charismatic gifts...he persuaded the Irish nationalists...to rally behind his very conservative and in some respects ambiguous programme of Home Rule.."
A.N.Wilson. 'The Victorians' Arrow Books, London 2003. p454
At the height of his power in the 1880s, Parnell and the Irish Parliamentary Party controlled enough seats in the House of Commons to be able to effectively hold the balance of power & decide the British prime minister of the day. Feted throughout the island, he was popularly considered as the 'uncrowned king of Ireland'.
When first elected to Westminster in 1875, Parnell was one of the only 60 members of the Irish Home Rule League Party, a 'respectable, middle class' political grouping with a moderate programme of little impact, little discipline or even less leadership. The party was considered to be spectacularly ineffective as a political grouping and as a result, the wily Prime Minister Disraeli largely ignored it. More pressing matters of international interest with Bismarck's Germany and the Eastern Question rather than Irish tenant farmers and talk of Home Rule.
When first elected to Westminster in 1875, Parnell was one of the only 60 members of the Irish Home Rule League Party, a 'respectable, middle class' political grouping with a moderate programme of little impact, little discipline or even less leadership. The party was considered to be spectacularly ineffective as a political grouping and as a result, the wily Prime Minister Disraeli largely ignored it. More pressing matters of international interest with Bismarck's Germany and the Eastern Question rather than Irish tenant farmers and talk of Home Rule.
Parnell at the time was 'reticent in speech almost to the point of unintelligibility, he seemed to combine most of the obstacles to political success...a nervous and superstitious man who disliked noise, large crowds and all the drudgery of public speaking. Yet he forced himself to become proficient...very rapidly grew to be a master of communicating inn terse and simple phrases, his own passionate convictions to vast audiences'
Lyons, FSL. (1985) Ireland since the Famine. London. Fontana Press. ISBN 0-00-686005-2. p156-157 A sign of the future was a question posed at the end of Parnell's maiden speech, when he asked: "Why should Ireland be treated as a geographical fragment of England…Ireland is not a geographical fragment but a nation" Robert Kee 'Ireland'. Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London. 1980. P119 Parnell (as with most of the Home Rule League Party) was a largely silent observer of Parliamentary procedure and debate for two years. Hansard's record of parliament notes him only coming to attention in 1876, when he claimed that he did not believe murder had been committed by the Fenians in Manchester in September 1867 ('The Manchester Martyrs') when attempting to rescue two of their associates from police custody. |
Parnell first worked successfully to have imprisoned Fenians freed (such as Michael Davitt) who missed out on Gladstone's earlier amnesty of convicted Fenians in 1871. These prisoners were released in December 1877 on a 'ticket of leave' as a result of long and persistent agitation by the Home Rule Party.
(Davitt, born during the Famine in the same year as Parnell, had been evicted as a child with his family from their small holding in Mayo and forced into emigration to Lancashire. Put to work as a child labourer in a factory, he lost an arm aged eleven in an industrial accident. Joining the IRB as a young man, he had been arrested for trafficking in arms and sentenced to 15 years penal servitude in Dartmoor. There, he had endured a harsh regime for seven years - unable to break stones or sew mailbags, he had instead been harnessed to a cart dragging stone.) |
Parnell continued to cultivate Fenian sentiments both in Britain and Ireland and became associated with the more 'exotic & radical' wing of the Home Rule League, a minor group of young Irish members who distanced themselves from Butt's lack of assertiveness. Amongst the small group was Joseph Biggar (MP for Cavan from 1874 and an IRB member).
Both Parnell & Biggar adopted the method of parliamentary "obstructionism" during 1876–1877. The skillfull use of Parliament's rules against itself, largely to force Westminster out of its complacency towards Ireland by proposing amendments to almost every bill and making lengthy, frequently overnight speeches. The Obstructionists argued that since the British Parliament blocked progress on the Irish issue, the Irish members would equally block progress on British issues. For months in Parliament, Parnell and others spoke night after night – sometimes all night, preventing Disraeli from passing any major legislation and almost destroying the Conservative's political programme for that session. While the policy did not bring Home Rule any closer, it did revitalise the party and Disraeli was eventually forced to make concessions to Ireland. Isaac Butt 'tut-tutted' & disapproved of the parliamentary tactic, considering such practices as 'un-gentlemanly' and confrontational. A noticeable political rift swiftly developed within the Home Rule League between the majority under Isaac Butt and an increasingly vocal and powerful minority led by Parnell. Parnell was clearly now a man who commanded attention. |
By 1877, Parnell was moving ahead and quickly, coming to the attention of many, including the Irish-American Clann na Gael organisation (formerly the American Fenians).
Parnell next took over the Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain from it's founder, Isaac Butt. Originally formed to harness support of Irish in Britain for Home Rule, the organisation was gradually infiltrated by the IRB - part of the Fenian policy of gaining control of agrarian groups, local government bodies and other societies within Ireland and with it, political influence. Butt retained control of the Home Rule League in Ireland, which had a more middle-class and fewer recognised Fenians amongst the membership and structure. During 1878 Parnell also met with leading members of Clan na Gael (John O'Leary, Dr William Carroll and J.J.Kelly) who reported favourably on the rising young Irish MP for Cork, to the leader of Clan na Gael, the highly influential John Devoy. |
John Devoy (1842-1928) pictured in c.1879. On Devoy’s death in 1928 The Times of London gave him an unintentionally satisfying tribute with the following quote calling Devoy: ‘the most bitter and persistent, as well as the most dangerous, enemy of this country which Ireland has produced since Wolfe Tone’.
|
"The New Departure"
Appalled by conditions among tenant farmers in his native Mayo, Davitt began to advocate the participation of the Fenian movement in land agitation.
In 1878, Davitt toured America addressing meetings organised by John Devoy and Clan na Gael. In late September, after a lecture by Davitt at the Cooper Institute in New York, Devoy proposed two resolutions that linked the republican cause with peasant proprietorship. He said that ‘as the land of Ireland belongs to the people of Ireland, the abolition of the foreign landlord system, and the substitution of one by which the tiller of the soil will become fixed upon it . . . [was the only solution to the land question]… which an Irish republic can alone effect’.
In October Clan na Gael sent a telegram to the IRB Supreme Council with details of the ‘new departure’ under which the Fenian movement would support parliamentarians and land agitation. The attached conditions were that the parliamentarians advocate for Irish independence and agitate for the settlement of the land question in Ireland by abolishing landlordism in favour of peasant proprietorship. Devoy felt that sweeping away the ‘foreign landlord system’ was a precursor to ‘sweeping away every vestige of English connection’ with Ireland.
In an anonymous article in the New York Herald on 27 October 1878, Devoy laid out the framework for a new policy he formally termed 'The New Departure' outlining his attempt to find common ground between revolutionary physical force groups seeking independence for Ireland from Britain, and with political groups attempting to achieve Home Rule through constitutional means.
This was a radical change in revolutionary thinking in separating militancy from the constitutional movement in order to further it's path to Home Rule including an all-Ireland self-government. As Devoy put it at the time, it was not a change of ends rather of means. There were certain conditions to this co-operation, including dropping Butt's plan of a federal Home Rule solution in favour of separatist self-government, vigorous agitation on the land question on the basis of tenant ownership (largely as Devoy believed that 'demands of the Land League will not be granted by a parliament of British landlords') and equally stiff resistance in Ireland to any coercive legislation from London.
The IRB in Ireland disagreed and refused to support the new policy. The conservative, purist IRB leadership of John O'Leary and Charles Kickham argued that anything other than armed struggle against Britain was a distraction. Some have commented that O'Leary's criticism was no doubt influenced by the fact that he himself was a landlord in Tipperary. However, the IRB began to lose members, including some of it's more influential and charismatic supporters, who saw the revolutionary movement moribund and inactive at the moment of greatest radical acitivity in almost a century.
As far as the British Government were concerned, the new arrangement simply endorsed the Irish physical force movement and armed strategies while also raising questions as to the loyalty of the leadership of the Home Rule League party. To use a more modern comparison, Parnell & the Home Rule League became the political wing of Clann na Gael.
In practice however, this new policy actually worked. The Fenians/Clan na Gael in the United States provided cash for the Land League and Parnell, the League in turn mounted a national campaign to secure land reform and Parnell represented and supported these ideas in Westminster. This policy of co-operation between American Fenians and Irish nationalists did not end until the establishment of the Free State in 1922.
"Fenianism was popularised and became more moderate, while the Home Rule movement was edging toward radicalism at the same time, laying the framework for the alliance."
Jackson, Alvin (2010) [1999]. Ireland: 1798-1998. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9780631195429. p104
In 1878, Davitt toured America addressing meetings organised by John Devoy and Clan na Gael. In late September, after a lecture by Davitt at the Cooper Institute in New York, Devoy proposed two resolutions that linked the republican cause with peasant proprietorship. He said that ‘as the land of Ireland belongs to the people of Ireland, the abolition of the foreign landlord system, and the substitution of one by which the tiller of the soil will become fixed upon it . . . [was the only solution to the land question]… which an Irish republic can alone effect’.
In October Clan na Gael sent a telegram to the IRB Supreme Council with details of the ‘new departure’ under which the Fenian movement would support parliamentarians and land agitation. The attached conditions were that the parliamentarians advocate for Irish independence and agitate for the settlement of the land question in Ireland by abolishing landlordism in favour of peasant proprietorship. Devoy felt that sweeping away the ‘foreign landlord system’ was a precursor to ‘sweeping away every vestige of English connection’ with Ireland.
In an anonymous article in the New York Herald on 27 October 1878, Devoy laid out the framework for a new policy he formally termed 'The New Departure' outlining his attempt to find common ground between revolutionary physical force groups seeking independence for Ireland from Britain, and with political groups attempting to achieve Home Rule through constitutional means.
This was a radical change in revolutionary thinking in separating militancy from the constitutional movement in order to further it's path to Home Rule including an all-Ireland self-government. As Devoy put it at the time, it was not a change of ends rather of means. There were certain conditions to this co-operation, including dropping Butt's plan of a federal Home Rule solution in favour of separatist self-government, vigorous agitation on the land question on the basis of tenant ownership (largely as Devoy believed that 'demands of the Land League will not be granted by a parliament of British landlords') and equally stiff resistance in Ireland to any coercive legislation from London.
The IRB in Ireland disagreed and refused to support the new policy. The conservative, purist IRB leadership of John O'Leary and Charles Kickham argued that anything other than armed struggle against Britain was a distraction. Some have commented that O'Leary's criticism was no doubt influenced by the fact that he himself was a landlord in Tipperary. However, the IRB began to lose members, including some of it's more influential and charismatic supporters, who saw the revolutionary movement moribund and inactive at the moment of greatest radical acitivity in almost a century.
As far as the British Government were concerned, the new arrangement simply endorsed the Irish physical force movement and armed strategies while also raising questions as to the loyalty of the leadership of the Home Rule League party. To use a more modern comparison, Parnell & the Home Rule League became the political wing of Clann na Gael.
In practice however, this new policy actually worked. The Fenians/Clan na Gael in the United States provided cash for the Land League and Parnell, the League in turn mounted a national campaign to secure land reform and Parnell represented and supported these ideas in Westminster. This policy of co-operation between American Fenians and Irish nationalists did not end until the establishment of the Free State in 1922.
"Fenianism was popularised and became more moderate, while the Home Rule movement was edging toward radicalism at the same time, laying the framework for the alliance."
Jackson, Alvin (2010) [1999]. Ireland: 1798-1998. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9780631195429. p104
The Land Question was the single-most important political and economic factor in Ireland by 1880 but had been so for generations - both for those that owned and those that wished to own, land.
Tenant-rights dominated much of nineteenth century Irish politics, and Ireland's land debates often dominated British politics.
As one member of Parliament wryly observed, "the Irish Land Question has probably engaged the attention of Parliament more than any other subject during the last thirty years."
Bonds without Bondsmen: Tenant-Right in Nineteenth-Century Ireland. Timothy W. Guinnane and Ronald I. Miller. 1996
During the 18th and most of the 19th centuries, almost every Irish farmer and small-holder was a tenant of one of the large estates whose Anglo-Irish gentry owners controlled every aspect of Irish life.
Background
Successive Irish rebellions against British rule in earlier centuries had resulted in almost all Irish land being confiscated from its historic owners. This land was then granted or re-distributed to those who were proven to be loyal to British interests. These included the ‘adventurers’ who had funded the armies involved in quelling Irish rebellions; soldiers who served in the armies involved (in lieu of pay) and also others who were due favours by the British court. These new owners (and their successors) in turn rented the land to the existing occupiers, or in some cases (particularly Ulster) settled their new properties with 'loyal Protestant' immigrants from Scotland and England. In parallel, draconian anti-Catholic and anti-Presbyterian legislation - the Penal Laws, were imposed from 1703 limiting the right of Catholics to own property above a certain value; to hold public positions; and to receive an education. This created a situation where acceptance of the role of tenant with no rights was the only option available to the majority.
The Penal Laws had a profound effect on Ireland, especially as the bulk of the population were Catholic. Edmund Burke described the Laws as “well-fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.”
It is estimated that in the 18th century, 95% of the cultivable land was owned by about 5,000 families, often referred to as the Anglo-Irish ascendancy. Within a century, by the 1870s, this ownership had been whittled down to around by 750 families.
Many of these estate owners were ‘absentee’ landlords who preferred to live abroad, usually in England. However, unlike estate-owners in England and elsewhere, most of these landlords had little interest in improvement of their estates or in assisting their tenants to become more productive. In other countries, the philosophy of estate owners was that ensuring the economic viability of their tenants was the best means of ensuring continued rent payments. With some exceptions, this was not the practice on Irish estates, although there were some ‘improving’ landlords.
The income generated by the efforts of the native Irish population was phenomenal. Rental income in 1845 from Irish estates has been estimated at €13.4 million (c.€11 billion /$12.6 billion in 2022 values). In the post-Famine period between 1850 and 1870, landlords extracted some £340 million in rent (some £43 billion in 2022 values) which far exceeding Treasury tax receipts for the same period— and of which only 4–5% was reinvested in the island.
Take this throwaway remark by the imposing dowager Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde's 'The Importance of Being Earnest' which premiered in 1895 for a contemporary view from the land owning class:
Lady Bracknell: ....What between the duties expected during one's lifetime, and the duties exacted from one after one's death, land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one position and prevents one from keeping it up. That's all that can be said about land.
The view from the Irish tenant farmers, naturally, differed radically from that of Wilde's Lady Bracknell.
The majority of the population in pre-famine Ireland had little or no access to land and they lived in appalling conditions. 40% of Irish houses in 1841 were one room mud cabins with natural earth floors, no windows and no chimneys. Furniture and cooking facilities in these hovels were primitive. Their inhabitants' diet was monotonous and increasingly inadequate. Apart from beggars and paupers, virtually landless labourers (cottiers) occupied the lowest rung on the social ladder: there were 596,000 cottiers in the 1841 Census, and they comprised the largest single occupational/social group in the country.
Lady Bracknell: ....What between the duties expected during one's lifetime, and the duties exacted from one after one's death, land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one position and prevents one from keeping it up. That's all that can be said about land.
The view from the Irish tenant farmers, naturally, differed radically from that of Wilde's Lady Bracknell.
The majority of the population in pre-famine Ireland had little or no access to land and they lived in appalling conditions. 40% of Irish houses in 1841 were one room mud cabins with natural earth floors, no windows and no chimneys. Furniture and cooking facilities in these hovels were primitive. Their inhabitants' diet was monotonous and increasingly inadequate. Apart from beggars and paupers, virtually landless labourers (cottiers) occupied the lowest rung on the social ladder: there were 596,000 cottiers in the 1841 Census, and they comprised the largest single occupational/social group in the country.
Smallholders numbered 408,000 in 1841. Of these 65,000 had holdings of less than 1 acre, and were virtually indistinguishable from the cottiers. Many had to rely on income from other sources, such as peat-digging or using waste-land for common grazing, domestic industry (which was declining anyway), kelp collecting, fishing (where possible) or seasonal work on large farms. Smallholders with between 6 and 15 acres were classed as small farmers. Whatever the size of their holdings, virtually none had written agreements with their landlords to give them legal security of tenure.
Some 453,000 were returned in the 1841 Census as "Farmers" and ranked as men of some standing and wealth. They had a comfortable standard of living, participated in local and national politics, supported and financed the Catholic Church, arranged beneficial marriages for their children and provided social leadership in the absence of local landowners. Sometimes they were also landlords to the smallholders and cottiers, subletting land which they rented on long leases from the landowner.
Some 453,000 were returned in the 1841 Census as "Farmers" and ranked as men of some standing and wealth. They had a comfortable standard of living, participated in local and national politics, supported and financed the Catholic Church, arranged beneficial marriages for their children and provided social leadership in the absence of local landowners. Sometimes they were also landlords to the smallholders and cottiers, subletting land which they rented on long leases from the landowner.
Land Ownership & Tenancy agreements during the 19th Century
There were just three types of estate land ownership in post Famine Ireland - Crown, Landed and Encumbered.
All land in Ireland was held by the British Crown according to the feudal doctrine of allodial tenure and was orginally issued to or purchased by various individuals to form Landed Estates. This land however would revert (escheat) to the Crown in instances of attainder (treason), felony or lacking a legal heir.
Landed estates were the thousands of acres of land held by the Anglo-Irish gentry that were the backbone of the Irish economy. Farmers and tenants leased their property from these landholders and paid semi-annual rents and were not permitted to purchase. Prior to the Land Acts of the 1880s, a majority of all Irish farmers were tenants, and most of them were either yearly tenants or tenants-at-will; both lacking formal leases and frequently with difficult, exacting conditions and high rents.
The Great Famine had a massive impact on the management and economic viability of many landed estates. Some estates had been heavily mortgaged to help finance the lifestyle of the gentrified owners - the 'Big House' and attendant lifestyle of the ascendancy class of the "fishing, shooting and hunting" genre of whom Gifford Lewis wrote: "The ascendancy was an enormous confidence trick, shored up by faithful servants and good horsemanship." Then there were the marriage settlements and dowries and the simple reality that many landowners were unable to collect rents due to the inability of their tenants to pay. Parliament acted quickly, passing in 1849 an Encumbered Estates Court with authority to sell estates on the application of the owner or encumbrancer (one who had a claim on the estate).
After a forced sale, the court then distributed funds among the creditors and granted clear title to the new owners. Some 3,000 estates were sold off in this manner between 1849-1857, totalling over five million acres. With a tenantry weakened by sickness, death, eviction and emigration, their downfall in turn brought about the downfall of the great landed estates.
There were just three types of estate land ownership in post Famine Ireland - Crown, Landed and Encumbered.
All land in Ireland was held by the British Crown according to the feudal doctrine of allodial tenure and was orginally issued to or purchased by various individuals to form Landed Estates. This land however would revert (escheat) to the Crown in instances of attainder (treason), felony or lacking a legal heir.
Landed estates were the thousands of acres of land held by the Anglo-Irish gentry that were the backbone of the Irish economy. Farmers and tenants leased their property from these landholders and paid semi-annual rents and were not permitted to purchase. Prior to the Land Acts of the 1880s, a majority of all Irish farmers were tenants, and most of them were either yearly tenants or tenants-at-will; both lacking formal leases and frequently with difficult, exacting conditions and high rents.
The Great Famine had a massive impact on the management and economic viability of many landed estates. Some estates had been heavily mortgaged to help finance the lifestyle of the gentrified owners - the 'Big House' and attendant lifestyle of the ascendancy class of the "fishing, shooting and hunting" genre of whom Gifford Lewis wrote: "The ascendancy was an enormous confidence trick, shored up by faithful servants and good horsemanship." Then there were the marriage settlements and dowries and the simple reality that many landowners were unable to collect rents due to the inability of their tenants to pay. Parliament acted quickly, passing in 1849 an Encumbered Estates Court with authority to sell estates on the application of the owner or encumbrancer (one who had a claim on the estate).
After a forced sale, the court then distributed funds among the creditors and granted clear title to the new owners. Some 3,000 estates were sold off in this manner between 1849-1857, totalling over five million acres. With a tenantry weakened by sickness, death, eviction and emigration, their downfall in turn brought about the downfall of the great landed estates.
Types of Tenancy during the 19th Century
Landed estates were run as private businesses, so each landholder or landlord would determine the length of time and the terms for each lease for their tenants. Leases were often granted for the length of a tenants life and the conditions surrounding the lease would vary depending on the value of the property, the ages of those lives named and other factors.
Lease of Lives agreements
Commonplace during the 18th Century, these tenancy agreements were defined in years and described as a 'Lease of Lives'.
Put simply what it meant is that the person taking the lease, the leasee, nominated either one, two or three relatives in the lease. This lease expired only when all either all the people named had died or the term of years expired (usually 31 years for one or 41 years for two Lease of Lives).
For example on a two lives lease, a father obtaining a lease on land could name his youngest son as the other life in the lease. As long as the father or the youngest son are living, the terms and conditions of the lease amount are in effect. Upon the death of both, the landholder may renegotiate the lease with other family members or choose new tenants. Until 1778, Roman Catholics could not hold leases of more than 31 years. Longer term tenancies encouraged tenants to maintain and improve their properties and were favoured by more 'progressive' landlords but some discovered that such leases were problematic. If one of the persons named on the lease chose to emigrate, it was difficult to establish if they were still alive.
There was also the occasional 'Three Lives For Ever' or perpetuity lease. This was a lease where a new life could be inserted at the end of each life on payment of a renewal fine which was usually half of the annual rent payment. The annual rent, however, never changed and those in possession of such a lease often sublet their land in at a substantial profit. Perpetuity leases were effectively freeholds and entitled the holder of the lease to a vote. Those granted such a lease in turn could be relied upon to vote for their politically ambitious benefactor at each election. Such a lease was not generally available to Roman Catholics. As these leases expired during the early 19th century, tenants were given the more widespread Tenancy at Will agreements. Far more lucrative for the landlord at any rate.
The Ulster Custom or Tenant Right
This custom usually meant that a tenant would not be evicted if he paid his rent and if he left the farm, for whatever reason, he would be entitled to a sum of money from the incoming tenant which reflected the value of the farm at that time.
Tenancies-at-will notwithstanding, Irish farmers occupied their holdings for surprisingly long times. Long occupation without a lease was often reflected in the landlord's recognition of tenant-right, or the "Ulster Custom." Although most common in Ulster, this was actually widespread throughout Ireland. Sometimes referred to as the "three F's": "fixity of tenure" or the right to remain on a holding so long as rent was paid; the right to pay a "fair" rent; and the right to "free sale" of the tenant's interest or tenant-right when a tenancy changed hands.
Fixity of tenure amounted to an informal, perpetual lease. Fair rent meant to Irish tenant farmers, a rent less than the "rack" rent" (this was the price at which a holding would be let should the landlord place the holding on an open market and frequently resulted in tenants paying far more to rent land than they could afford to - also known as 'Ricardian Rent'.)
With rent below the Ricardian rent, the landlord could find incoming tenants willing to pay a lump sum for the right to rent the land at the "fair rent"; this sum, or the practice of paying it, constituted much of tenant-right.
Tenant-right also implied an awkward co-proprietorship in land. For tenant-right to have any meaning, the landlord had to concede certain rights - such as setting rents at competitive levels - normally associated with the ownership of land.
Ulster Custom or not, falling behind in rent payments due to bad harvests, accident, illness or opposing one's landlord inevitably meant bankruptcy, eviction, starvation, the Workhouse or forced emigration.
Landed estates were run as private businesses, so each landholder or landlord would determine the length of time and the terms for each lease for their tenants. Leases were often granted for the length of a tenants life and the conditions surrounding the lease would vary depending on the value of the property, the ages of those lives named and other factors.
- Tenancy-at-will agreements
Lease of Lives agreements
Commonplace during the 18th Century, these tenancy agreements were defined in years and described as a 'Lease of Lives'.
Put simply what it meant is that the person taking the lease, the leasee, nominated either one, two or three relatives in the lease. This lease expired only when all either all the people named had died or the term of years expired (usually 31 years for one or 41 years for two Lease of Lives).
For example on a two lives lease, a father obtaining a lease on land could name his youngest son as the other life in the lease. As long as the father or the youngest son are living, the terms and conditions of the lease amount are in effect. Upon the death of both, the landholder may renegotiate the lease with other family members or choose new tenants. Until 1778, Roman Catholics could not hold leases of more than 31 years. Longer term tenancies encouraged tenants to maintain and improve their properties and were favoured by more 'progressive' landlords but some discovered that such leases were problematic. If one of the persons named on the lease chose to emigrate, it was difficult to establish if they were still alive.
There was also the occasional 'Three Lives For Ever' or perpetuity lease. This was a lease where a new life could be inserted at the end of each life on payment of a renewal fine which was usually half of the annual rent payment. The annual rent, however, never changed and those in possession of such a lease often sublet their land in at a substantial profit. Perpetuity leases were effectively freeholds and entitled the holder of the lease to a vote. Those granted such a lease in turn could be relied upon to vote for their politically ambitious benefactor at each election. Such a lease was not generally available to Roman Catholics. As these leases expired during the early 19th century, tenants were given the more widespread Tenancy at Will agreements. Far more lucrative for the landlord at any rate.
The Ulster Custom or Tenant Right
This custom usually meant that a tenant would not be evicted if he paid his rent and if he left the farm, for whatever reason, he would be entitled to a sum of money from the incoming tenant which reflected the value of the farm at that time.
Tenancies-at-will notwithstanding, Irish farmers occupied their holdings for surprisingly long times. Long occupation without a lease was often reflected in the landlord's recognition of tenant-right, or the "Ulster Custom." Although most common in Ulster, this was actually widespread throughout Ireland. Sometimes referred to as the "three F's": "fixity of tenure" or the right to remain on a holding so long as rent was paid; the right to pay a "fair" rent; and the right to "free sale" of the tenant's interest or tenant-right when a tenancy changed hands.
Fixity of tenure amounted to an informal, perpetual lease. Fair rent meant to Irish tenant farmers, a rent less than the "rack" rent" (this was the price at which a holding would be let should the landlord place the holding on an open market and frequently resulted in tenants paying far more to rent land than they could afford to - also known as 'Ricardian Rent'.)
With rent below the Ricardian rent, the landlord could find incoming tenants willing to pay a lump sum for the right to rent the land at the "fair rent"; this sum, or the practice of paying it, constituted much of tenant-right.
Tenant-right also implied an awkward co-proprietorship in land. For tenant-right to have any meaning, the landlord had to concede certain rights - such as setting rents at competitive levels - normally associated with the ownership of land.
Ulster Custom or not, falling behind in rent payments due to bad harvests, accident, illness or opposing one's landlord inevitably meant bankruptcy, eviction, starvation, the Workhouse or forced emigration.
Land Legislation for the Irish Land Question
Between the Acts of Union 1800 and 1870, Parliament had passed a number of Acts dealing with Irish land and ownership, but each had been in the interest of the landlord rather than the tenant.
For example, the Encumbered Estates (Ireland) Act 1849 had led to the sale of estates by debt-ridden mainly absentee landlords but resulted in a new class of speculators as landlords in Ireland. These speculators included many Catholics, who in many cases showed little regard for their brethren in faith. Their first priority was raising tenants' rents to increase their personal income, and were quickly considered far worse than the old landlords.
It didn't end there, the passing of The Deasy Act of 1860, next gave the landowner an absolute power to dispose of his land as he saw fit. This produced a state of continual and increasing disturbance.
"If England had her Irish Question, Ireland most assuredly had her English Question"
O'Farrell, Patrick. 'Ireland's English Question' New York, 1971
Demands for land and social reform in Ireland were finally recognised as an electoral issue by the Liberal Party under William Gladstone, and helped their election to government in 1868 on a promise of justice for Ireland including land reforms & disestablishment of the Church of Ireland.
Though relatively conservative, the Land Act of 1870 "had a symbolic significance far beyond its immediate effects" but in reality, while insisting that the Irish tenant farmer had rights, did absolutely nothing to advance them. This legislation required compensation for improvements to all outgoing tenants as well as compensation for disturbance to any tenants who were ejected. In a more confusing set of clauses, the Act of 1870 also legalised the Ulster Custom where it had existed before. Legalisation of the Ulster Custom had ambiguous implications, since the Act never defined the Ulster Custom nor did the Act prevent the rent increases that would reduce the value of the tenant's interest. For all the shortcomings of the 1870 Land Act, the tide of laissez-faire legislation favouring capitalist landlordism, and in principle, if not in practice, was a defeat for the concept of the absolute right of property.
For the first time in Ireland tenants now had a notional legal interest in their holdings. However, ongoing refusal by London to concede any rights and privileges to the Irish tenant farmer for fear it would disturb the existing 'social order' in both Ireland and Britain, simply compounded the inherent problems.
Between the Acts of Union 1800 and 1870, Parliament had passed a number of Acts dealing with Irish land and ownership, but each had been in the interest of the landlord rather than the tenant.
For example, the Encumbered Estates (Ireland) Act 1849 had led to the sale of estates by debt-ridden mainly absentee landlords but resulted in a new class of speculators as landlords in Ireland. These speculators included many Catholics, who in many cases showed little regard for their brethren in faith. Their first priority was raising tenants' rents to increase their personal income, and were quickly considered far worse than the old landlords.
It didn't end there, the passing of The Deasy Act of 1860, next gave the landowner an absolute power to dispose of his land as he saw fit. This produced a state of continual and increasing disturbance.
"If England had her Irish Question, Ireland most assuredly had her English Question"
O'Farrell, Patrick. 'Ireland's English Question' New York, 1971
Demands for land and social reform in Ireland were finally recognised as an electoral issue by the Liberal Party under William Gladstone, and helped their election to government in 1868 on a promise of justice for Ireland including land reforms & disestablishment of the Church of Ireland.
Though relatively conservative, the Land Act of 1870 "had a symbolic significance far beyond its immediate effects" but in reality, while insisting that the Irish tenant farmer had rights, did absolutely nothing to advance them. This legislation required compensation for improvements to all outgoing tenants as well as compensation for disturbance to any tenants who were ejected. In a more confusing set of clauses, the Act of 1870 also legalised the Ulster Custom where it had existed before. Legalisation of the Ulster Custom had ambiguous implications, since the Act never defined the Ulster Custom nor did the Act prevent the rent increases that would reduce the value of the tenant's interest. For all the shortcomings of the 1870 Land Act, the tide of laissez-faire legislation favouring capitalist landlordism, and in principle, if not in practice, was a defeat for the concept of the absolute right of property.
For the first time in Ireland tenants now had a notional legal interest in their holdings. However, ongoing refusal by London to concede any rights and privileges to the Irish tenant farmer for fear it would disturb the existing 'social order' in both Ireland and Britain, simply compounded the inherent problems.
Economic & Agricultural Depression
Economically, a great depression of British & Irish Agriculture existed between 1873 to 1896 which exacerbated the push for land reform and ownership.
Coinciding with the global economic depression at the time, this agricultural depression in Britain and Ireland was caused by the dramatic fall in grain prices that followed the opening up of the American prairies to cultivation in the 1870s along with the advent of cheap transportation of meat from Australia with the rise of steamships. Add to these cheaper imports, poor weather due to the El Nino phenomenon, resulted in bad harvests & crop failures along with a lack of government intervention, life & and a living from the land became increasingly difficult for everybody - from the tenant farmer to the land owner. Remittances from family members in Britain & the United States back to family in Ireland also fell dramatically as there was little work to be had.
With poor harvests & low prices, the small holding Irish tenant farmer quickly found himself unable to pay his rent… but there was a worse catastrophe threatening. The dreaded spectre of Famine coupled with evictions and the threat of wholesale emigration was again looming over much of the West of Ireland.
By October 1878, concern for conditions in Mayo resulted in the founding of the Mayo Tenants' Defence Association (or Mayo Farmers' Club) in Castlebar. Supported by local MP, John O'Connor Power, this was further reinforced when another MP, Parnell attended a month later.
Economically, a great depression of British & Irish Agriculture existed between 1873 to 1896 which exacerbated the push for land reform and ownership.
Coinciding with the global economic depression at the time, this agricultural depression in Britain and Ireland was caused by the dramatic fall in grain prices that followed the opening up of the American prairies to cultivation in the 1870s along with the advent of cheap transportation of meat from Australia with the rise of steamships. Add to these cheaper imports, poor weather due to the El Nino phenomenon, resulted in bad harvests & crop failures along with a lack of government intervention, life & and a living from the land became increasingly difficult for everybody - from the tenant farmer to the land owner. Remittances from family members in Britain & the United States back to family in Ireland also fell dramatically as there was little work to be had.
With poor harvests & low prices, the small holding Irish tenant farmer quickly found himself unable to pay his rent… but there was a worse catastrophe threatening. The dreaded spectre of Famine coupled with evictions and the threat of wholesale emigration was again looming over much of the West of Ireland.
By October 1878, concern for conditions in Mayo resulted in the founding of the Mayo Tenants' Defence Association (or Mayo Farmers' Club) in Castlebar. Supported by local MP, John O'Connor Power, this was further reinforced when another MP, Parnell attended a month later.
Tenant Rights
In early 1879 the tenants of landlord Canon Burke* of Irishtown in east Mayo approached the editor of the Connaught Telegraph James Daly seeking help. Daly, a well known tenant's rights activist, organised a protest meeting at Irishtown for Sunday, 20 April.
* The landowner variously referred to as 'Canon Ulick Burke' is under some dispute. Said to be a Roman Catholic priest who had inherited a property with 22 tenants, all in arrears. He had increased rents and on non-payment, had taken legal steps to evict them. The historian T. W. Moody disputes this theory, claiming that this view is based on Michael Davitt's faulty recollection before the 1889 Times-Parnell Commission and his 1904 The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland, repeated by Sheehy-Skeffington in 1908; and that no contemporary accounts of the events mention a Canon Bourke as an issue. Whether a padre or otherwise, this landlord of Irishtown, Co. Mayo effectively precipitated the Tenant Rights movement and could be argued to have been the catalyst for all that followed.
Placards appeared in the Irishtown district with the Thomas Davis’s heading, ‘The West’s Awake’, announcing a land meeting to be held at Irishtown on 20 April 1879. The placards further declared ‘Down with the invaders! Down with the tyrants’.
This was effectively the beginning of what was to become known as The Land War.
The meeting itself was a success – an estimated turnout of some 15-20,000 people in spite of warnings not to attend issued by the Catholic Church. Clearly, people would resist attempts to evict them far more vehemently than they had during the Famine. Evolving out of this meeting, a number of local land league organisations were set up to work against the excessive rents being demanded by landlords throughout Ireland, but especially in Mayo and surrounding counties.
In early 1879 the tenants of landlord Canon Burke* of Irishtown in east Mayo approached the editor of the Connaught Telegraph James Daly seeking help. Daly, a well known tenant's rights activist, organised a protest meeting at Irishtown for Sunday, 20 April.
* The landowner variously referred to as 'Canon Ulick Burke' is under some dispute. Said to be a Roman Catholic priest who had inherited a property with 22 tenants, all in arrears. He had increased rents and on non-payment, had taken legal steps to evict them. The historian T. W. Moody disputes this theory, claiming that this view is based on Michael Davitt's faulty recollection before the 1889 Times-Parnell Commission and his 1904 The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland, repeated by Sheehy-Skeffington in 1908; and that no contemporary accounts of the events mention a Canon Bourke as an issue. Whether a padre or otherwise, this landlord of Irishtown, Co. Mayo effectively precipitated the Tenant Rights movement and could be argued to have been the catalyst for all that followed.
Placards appeared in the Irishtown district with the Thomas Davis’s heading, ‘The West’s Awake’, announcing a land meeting to be held at Irishtown on 20 April 1879. The placards further declared ‘Down with the invaders! Down with the tyrants’.
This was effectively the beginning of what was to become known as The Land War.
The meeting itself was a success – an estimated turnout of some 15-20,000 people in spite of warnings not to attend issued by the Catholic Church. Clearly, people would resist attempts to evict them far more vehemently than they had during the Famine. Evolving out of this meeting, a number of local land league organisations were set up to work against the excessive rents being demanded by landlords throughout Ireland, but especially in Mayo and surrounding counties.
National political impetus to the Land Reform movement came in June 1879. While initially slow to commit, Parnell attended, speaking with Davitt at a second tenant's rights meeting attended by thousands in Westport, Co. Mayo.
This was the launch of Parnell's meteoric rise in Irish politics, the realisation of the power of the land reform movement and the beginning of the end of the rural landlord in Ireland.
By the late summer of 1879, the west of Ireland was in political turmoil on the issues of land and evictions. Working together with Davitt, Parnell now took on the role of leader of the New Departure, holding platform meeting after platform meeting around the country. Throughout the autumn of 1879, he repeated the simple message to tenants, after the long depression had left them without income for rent which saw evictions quadruple on the previous year:
This was the launch of Parnell's meteoric rise in Irish politics, the realisation of the power of the land reform movement and the beginning of the end of the rural landlord in Ireland.
By the late summer of 1879, the west of Ireland was in political turmoil on the issues of land and evictions. Working together with Davitt, Parnell now took on the role of leader of the New Departure, holding platform meeting after platform meeting around the country. Throughout the autumn of 1879, he repeated the simple message to tenants, after the long depression had left them without income for rent which saw evictions quadruple on the previous year:
"You must show the landlord that you intend to keep a firm grip on your homesteads and lands. You must not allow yourselves be dispossessed as you were dispossessed in 1847."
Parnell. Westport, 1 June, 1879
As the decade closed, there was growing poverty, hunger, rage & political turmoil throughout much of Ireland.
The Land League
The Irish National Land League was founded at the Imperial Hotel in Castlebar, the County town of Mayo, on 21 October 1879. At that meeting Charles Stewart Parnell was elected president of the league along with Andrew Kettle, Michael Davitt and Thomas Brennan as honorary secretaries. This united practically all the different strands of land agitation and tenant rights movements under a single organisation. In reality, while Parnell was the public head of the new organisation, the day to day running was very much in the hands of the IRB. The League now provided the IRB with the means to organise, publicise and spread the the Republican revolution.
Parnell signed a militant Land League address campaigning for land reform. In so doing, he linked the mass movement to parliamentary agitation and agrarian disturbance, with profound consequences for both of them.
The League aims were quite clear - to protect the tenant and abolish landlordism. These were to be achieved by '..every means compatible with justice, morality and right reason' and intended to expose 'the injustice, wrong or injury which may be inflicted upon any farmer…either by rack-renting, eviction or other arbitrary exercise of power which the existing laws enable the landlords to exercise over the tenantry'
The Land League was 'ostensibly a reforming movement, and therefore not acceptable to the orthodox leadership of th IRB, there were many Fenians in the League and John Devoy certainly saw the New Departure as the first step towards an armed uprising'
Dangerfield, George. 'The Damnable Question - a study in Anglo-Irish relations'. Constable, London. 1977. p18
Devoy's opinion was not shared by either Davitt or Parnell. Peaceful land nationalisation was Davitt's aim, tenant farmer ownership of land was Parnell's and then only through constitutional means. The Liberal Government saw neither, instead the threat of armed resistance and the forerunner to revolution.
Every parish or at least a group of parishes was now to have it's own branch of the Land League with the aim of emancipating 'Irish farmers from landlordism' with local officers elected, subscriptions collected to fund resistance to rack-renting & unjust landlords and the formation of Land Courts to be arbitrators in local land disputes.
Examples of various Irish National Land League membership cards. All images courtesy of the National Library of Ireland
Within three years, an impressive network of local branches throughout the country were in operation, integrating a large number of farmers into a powerful political movement, particularly strong in Connaught and Munster. The Land League had become an almost Ireland wide, powerful organisation with it's own administration, funding and legal structures. Crucially, the League also served as a relief agency and had the support of many, but not all of the Catholic Hierarchy.
At land meetings around the country, the IRB displayed their control of the movement to the authorities, often well signalled in advance by extensive poster posting in surrounding villages and towns:
"One poster requested that castle detectives attend and promised fireworks at the expense of a local landlord. Men marched in military style four deep, including some bearing imitation pikes behind bands playing national airs. IRB men on horses wearing green sashes imitated cavalry formation and formed guards around the speaker’s platforms. Irish and American flags were displayed at meetings, and contingents marched under revolutionary and nationalist banners: ‘Remember ’98’, ‘Unity is strength’, ‘Faith and Fatherland’, ‘Behold the dawn of freedom’, ‘Strike for your liberty’, ‘God save Ireland from the tyrants’, ‘Remember Emmet . . . we will rise again’, ‘On to freedom’, ‘Law is one thing, Justice is another’. American Independence Day was celebrated in a show of republican solidarity. Cromwell was declared to be the landlord prototype and tenants were assured that under the conditions they suffered ‘the most degraded black slaves of the East would rebel’.
Frank Rynne in History Ireland, 2008. https://www.historyireland.com/this-extra-parliamentary-propaganda-land-league-posters/
While the League, according to it's constitution at any rate, was a moral force movement - in the eyes of the British government, the campaign of the Land League was synonymous with physical force, it's top officials were mostly former Fenians and the 'Land War' was being fought with increasing bitterness and violence - the violence being used not only against landlords themselves and their agents, but against those who acquired land from which others had been evicted.
The League established a sophisticated system of 'moral force warfare' - process serving and evictions were made occasions of large demonstrations, families evicted were sheltered and supported, an embargo was placed on evicted farms; persons involved in prosecutions due to their involvement in League activities were defended and families of those imprisoned were cared for. Not only was the League on the side of the tenant farmer, but many of the Irish hierarchy was beginning to do the same.
For the first time, the tenant farmer was standing up to the landlord.
Isaac Butt died in May 1879 and William Shaw was elected party leader uncontested.
In a bout of activity, Parnell left for America in December 1879 with John Dillon to raise funds for famine relief, publicity meetings and to secure American support for Home Rule. He also wanted to connect with Irish American revolutionaries such as John Devoy who were backing the land agitation and the Home Rule movement. When he had visited three years earlier, Parnell was an obscure Irish politician who had little influence with American government officials. This time he was in a very different position. After arriving in New York City, Parnell spoke before a boisterous crowd of 7000 supporters. He then set off on a sixty city tour which would take him across the northeast and Midwest states and even into Canada.
From New York, he went south to Philadelphia and then headed north to Boston and to Lowell, Massachusetts. By mid-January, he was in Providence, speaking before at least 2000 supporters at the city’s Music Hall. Almost every day, he was off to a new city. In late January he was in the Midwest and by early February he reached Washington, D.C., met with President Rutherford B Hayes and on 2 February 1880, addressing a joint session of the United States Congress on the state of Ireland - the first Irish person to do so. In his speech he concentrated on the land situation and the current distress in Ireland and he proposed that the landlords be bought out, if necessary by compulsion:
In a bout of activity, Parnell left for America in December 1879 with John Dillon to raise funds for famine relief, publicity meetings and to secure American support for Home Rule. He also wanted to connect with Irish American revolutionaries such as John Devoy who were backing the land agitation and the Home Rule movement. When he had visited three years earlier, Parnell was an obscure Irish politician who had little influence with American government officials. This time he was in a very different position. After arriving in New York City, Parnell spoke before a boisterous crowd of 7000 supporters. He then set off on a sixty city tour which would take him across the northeast and Midwest states and even into Canada.
From New York, he went south to Philadelphia and then headed north to Boston and to Lowell, Massachusetts. By mid-January, he was in Providence, speaking before at least 2000 supporters at the city’s Music Hall. Almost every day, he was off to a new city. In late January he was in the Midwest and by early February he reached Washington, D.C., met with President Rutherford B Hayes and on 2 February 1880, addressing a joint session of the United States Congress on the state of Ireland - the first Irish person to do so. In his speech he concentrated on the land situation and the current distress in Ireland and he proposed that the landlords be bought out, if necessary by compulsion:
"I have every confidence that the public sentiment of America will be a great assistance to our people in their present effort to obtain a just and suitable settlement of the Irish land question."
Full text of speech to Congress here or https://www.irishamerica.com/2022/03/complete-speech-of-charles-stewart-parnell-mp-to-us-congress/
Detail of an illuminated address of Parnell's address to United States Congress, February 1880.
A contrasting view from the American satirical Puck Magazine of the address to the US Congress below:
He then continued his whirlwind travels, heading as far west as Minnesota. In some states, Parnell was invited to address the legislatures, and in several cities parades were staged in his honour. By March, he was in Canada accompanied by Tim Healy, a young Home Ruler who hailed Parnell as “Ireland’s uncrowned king,” a nickname that would stick in the years following.
While in Canada, Parnell learned that the British Parliament had been dissolved and that a general election would soon be held. Consequently, he had to cut his travels short. Still, the trip had been a remarkable success. He had criss-crossed much of the United States and had raised at least $350,000 for famine relief and for the Land League.
While in Canada, Parnell learned that the British Parliament had been dissolved and that a general election would soon be held. Consequently, he had to cut his travels short. Still, the trip had been a remarkable success. He had criss-crossed much of the United States and had raised at least $350,000 for famine relief and for the Land League.
An illuminated address - a standard feature of late nineteenth-century Irish nationalism - was generally presented in recognition of outstanding achievement.
This parchment was presented to Parnell by the leadership of the Land League to commemorate the occasion of his address to the United States’ House of Representatives in February 1880 during his fundraising tour of America. The text praises Parnell for his fundraising efforts and for highlighting the land situation in Ireland. With the threat of eviction hanging over tens of thousands of families at home, Parnell appealed to Congress for support for Ireland.
His address recognised their shared heritage and made a direct appeal to Irish- Americans for their support. It also reflected the contemporary anger and resolve in rural Ireland that ‘the fate which befel [sic] our famine slaughtered kindred’, ‘through the operation of an infamous land system’ by ‘felonious landlordism’, would never be repeated.
The manuscript, painted by Thomas Lynch of Dublin, is heavily influenced by the motifs and emblems of the late nineteenth-century Celtic revival. Typical of this artistic reawakening of interest in Gaelic history, culture and art, the manuscript incorporates Celtic design, cross patterns and Irish monastic art. The symbolism suggests an ancient nation, new in its aspirations and resolve. The use of the shamrock, round towers, harps, wolfhounds and Gaelic maidens also originated during this period. Images of the Great Famine reflected the importance of emigration and the role of the Irish diaspora to the success of the ‘New Departure’. Details from Conor McNamara, History Ireland, Vol. 19, No. 1 (January/February 2011), pp. 32-33
Click on the image above to view the complete illuminated address courtesy of the National Library of Ireland or click here.
This parchment was presented to Parnell by the leadership of the Land League to commemorate the occasion of his address to the United States’ House of Representatives in February 1880 during his fundraising tour of America. The text praises Parnell for his fundraising efforts and for highlighting the land situation in Ireland. With the threat of eviction hanging over tens of thousands of families at home, Parnell appealed to Congress for support for Ireland.
His address recognised their shared heritage and made a direct appeal to Irish- Americans for their support. It also reflected the contemporary anger and resolve in rural Ireland that ‘the fate which befel [sic] our famine slaughtered kindred’, ‘through the operation of an infamous land system’ by ‘felonious landlordism’, would never be repeated.
The manuscript, painted by Thomas Lynch of Dublin, is heavily influenced by the motifs and emblems of the late nineteenth-century Celtic revival. Typical of this artistic reawakening of interest in Gaelic history, culture and art, the manuscript incorporates Celtic design, cross patterns and Irish monastic art. The symbolism suggests an ancient nation, new in its aspirations and resolve. The use of the shamrock, round towers, harps, wolfhounds and Gaelic maidens also originated during this period. Images of the Great Famine reflected the importance of emigration and the role of the Irish diaspora to the success of the ‘New Departure’. Details from Conor McNamara, History Ireland, Vol. 19, No. 1 (January/February 2011), pp. 32-33
Click on the image above to view the complete illuminated address courtesy of the National Library of Ireland or click here.
Contrast the illuminated address above with these cartoons of Parnell and his tour from the American popular press - in this case, the satirical and humour magazine, Puck and the self proclaimed 'Journal of Civilisation', Harper's Weekly.
Similar themes of the "innocent and honest Irish servant girls” in America, donating money to relieve Irish rural distress, but where the Catholic church, politicians and Irish nationalism simultaneously manipulated and exploited them.
Similar themes of the "innocent and honest Irish servant girls” in America, donating money to relieve Irish rural distress, but where the Catholic church, politicians and Irish nationalism simultaneously manipulated and exploited them.
Historic cartoons can reveal a surprisingly great deal about the societies that produced them. Perhaps the truly surprising aspect of cartoonist Thomas Nast and his negative depictions of Irish, Italian, Chinese & Jewish immigrants in addition to Catholicism, is how un-shocking they were for their time. The deep-seated, anti-immigrant feelings and mistrust that was held by many in the United States during the 1860s -1880s is quite evident and merely confirmed and reinforced widely held opinions . Such opinions developed both in the wake of riots and other violent episodes that many saw as a sign that the Irish were incompatible with the ideals of the American nation and from long established and inherited British anti-Irish opinion.
However, Nast's legacy lives on with the creation of the modern version of Santa Claus and the political symbol of the elephant for the US Republican Party and his popularisation of images of Uncle Sam, Columbia and the Democratic donkey.
In January 1880, there was widespread unemployment and poverty in Cork City in Ireland. On this occasion, however, the victims were not prepared to suffer in silence, but determined to bring their case to the public and the municipal authorities. They marched through the streets bearing black flags as a sign of their distress, with loaves of bread spiked on top of the flagpoles — hence the name 'bread marches.' There was no violence.
When the marchers arrived at the Mayor's office, three of their number interrupted a meeting of the Corporation and requested permission to state their case. A spokesman said that they and their families were starving, and that they were without fire, light and food. They complained that the Corporation was giving preference in the filling of jobs to men coming in from the countryside. If they could not get work they would join a union. The Corporation, denying this allegation, said that the cause of the trouble was that the high wages being paid by the Corporation were attracting people into the city. ( thanks to Bill Holohan) |
Parnell's fundraising & public speaking activities in the United States came to an abrupt end in March 1880 when Prime Minister Disraeli announced a United Kingdom general election to be held the following month.
The American press covered Parnell's return to Ireland on 22 March 1880 in some detail:
The American press covered Parnell's return to Ireland on 22 March 1880 in some detail:
Parnell nominated as an MP for Cork
While Parnell had no business or family ties to Counties Cork or Mayo (and representing Meath since 1875 for the Home Rule League party), he had established strong enough of a connection with all three counties, that he was chosen by each electorate to represent them at Westminster.
Left: Fred W. Rose’s ‘COMIC MAP of the BRITISH ISLES indicating the Political Situation in 1880’. (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University) Thanks to Kieran Rankin & History Ireland. January 2021.
Published in the run-up to the 1880 general election, the map features four main individuals—the ermine-robed and crowned Benjamin Disraeli, the incumbent Conservative prime minister; two leaders of the opposition Liberal party, Lord Hartington (lying on the ground pierced by Disraeli’s sword, labelled ‘patriotism’) and the kilted William Gladstone in Scotland (with bagpipes tagged ‘speeches’ representing his intensive Midlothian campaign); and the symbolic figure of Erin representing Ireland. The contrast between Disraeli and Erin, sharing a mutual gaze, is stark, given Erin’s stricken appearance with dishevelled hair (with shamrock headband), as she bears burdens marked ‘famine’ and ‘distress’ on her back. The hegemony exerted over Ireland is conveyed, with Erin being literally tethered to England by a ‘union’ rein. Another political motif present is the hatchet of ‘radical support’ dangled above Erin by Gladstone. Erin herself is only armed with a broom inscribed with ‘obstruction’, which refers to the filibustering tactics of Home Rule parliamentarians, and she also has a tiny simian-jawed figure labelled ‘Parnell & Co’, representing the Home Rule party, furtively whispering in her ear. The legend explains that ‘Poor Erin, seduced by evil counsellors, (who flatter her with promises of being mistress in her own house) has seized a sorry implement to break the bond which aids her so materially to support her heavy burdens’. |
Historian Pauline Murray recounted the events at the Cork nominations:
With many thousands gathered around the hotel, Parnell spoke from a first floor window of the Victoria Hotel on Patrick Street, his slow measured opening words 'with an effect like an electric shock on the excited people':
“Citizens of Cork. This is the night before the battle. To your guns then.”
The next morning was polling day and the accidental nominee won the seat.
Parnell's star was certainly on the ascension as he also won seats in both Mayo & Meath, but chose to represent Cork and held the seat until his death in 1891.
This election marked the beginning of the dominance of Parnell, the Home Rule issue and the Home Rule League Party (soon to be renamed The Irish Parliamentary Party or IPP) in Irish politics. The IPP would continue to be a force in Westminster for almost 38 years before being wiped out in the 1918 general election by Sinn Fein.
Leadership of the party
The Irish Home Rule League won 64 out of 103 Irish Parliamentary seats in 1880, with twenty-seven Parnell supporters, facilitating Parnell's nomination as leader of a divided Home Rule Party and of a country on the brink of a land war. Successfully elected as leader, Parnell saw that supporting land agitation was a means to achieving the objective of self-government for Ireland.
Parnell became a master organiser. He ran the Irish Parliamentary party like a machine from parish level to parliament and by coupling the demand for Home Rule with the intensifying agitation for tenant rights in Ireland, Home Rule became an extremely powerful force in politics. Between the land question, land ownership and the demand for Home Rule, Irish issues were to consume a large proportion of parliamentary time at Westminster during the 1880s and intermittently thereafter. To further Irish interests, the Home Rule Party formally supported Gladstone as Prime Minister and the party went on to dominate Irish politics, to the exclusion of the previous Liberal, Conservative and Unionist parties that had traditionally been supported.
This election marked the beginning of the dominance of Parnell, the Home Rule issue and the Home Rule League Party (soon to be renamed The Irish Parliamentary Party or IPP) in Irish politics. The IPP would continue to be a force in Westminster for almost 38 years before being wiped out in the 1918 general election by Sinn Fein.
Leadership of the party
The Irish Home Rule League won 64 out of 103 Irish Parliamentary seats in 1880, with twenty-seven Parnell supporters, facilitating Parnell's nomination as leader of a divided Home Rule Party and of a country on the brink of a land war. Successfully elected as leader, Parnell saw that supporting land agitation was a means to achieving the objective of self-government for Ireland.
Parnell became a master organiser. He ran the Irish Parliamentary party like a machine from parish level to parliament and by coupling the demand for Home Rule with the intensifying agitation for tenant rights in Ireland, Home Rule became an extremely powerful force in politics. Between the land question, land ownership and the demand for Home Rule, Irish issues were to consume a large proportion of parliamentary time at Westminster during the 1880s and intermittently thereafter. To further Irish interests, the Home Rule Party formally supported Gladstone as Prime Minister and the party went on to dominate Irish politics, to the exclusion of the previous Liberal, Conservative and Unionist parties that had traditionally been supported.
However, along with Parnell's success, the seeds of his future political disaster were also sown during the summer of this year.
Mrs Katherine O'Shea, a well connected member of London society, a niece of a Liberal Lord Chancellor as well as the wife of a fellow Home Rule party member, Captain William O'Shea, MP for Clare 'a dashing but feckless character', now 'made it her business to meet the young bachelor leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party'
'The Uncrowned King of Ireland' by Katherine O'Shea. 1914. New York. 2005 reprint by Nonsuch Publishing Ltd - Introduction by Martin Mansergh. https://www.fadedpage.com/link.php?file=20210152-a5.pdf
In June 1880 the Freeman’s Journal published a letter by John Devoy defending his support for the Irish National Land League.
"Devoy railed against nationalists who might claim that he had betrayed his principles by supporting a partnership with parliamentarians and advocacy of a cause that deviated from the cherished aim of Fenianism, the overthrow of British rule in Ireland through armed revolt. Devoy wrote: ‘With all its shortcomings and all its mistakes… the land movement . . . made it possible to keep alive a national movement in the future’. Scotching rumours that he intended to run for parliament, Devoy said that the part of the movement that operated outside parliament would result in ‘breaking down the present land system or any other similar system’. The similar system he referred to was British rule in Ireland. Devoy felt that ‘this work of organisation, this extra parliamentary propaganda, is only now fairly initiated’. He urged clever, ambitious young men to look to the future: to organise, counsel and educate the people ‘for the long and arduous struggle before them’ rather than seek to strut around London as members of parliament."
Frank Rynne in History Ireland, 2008. https://www.historyireland.com/this-extra-parliamentary-propaganda-land-league-posters/
Later that month, the Compensation for Disturbance Bill (Ireland - 1880), was introduced to parliament by the new Irish Chief Secretary, William Forster, as a temporary measure to both defuse and deal with a deteriorating situation in Ireland brought about by the Irish famine and Land League agitation.
This legislation was to empower courts in certain cases to compensate a tenant upon eviction even if the eviction was for non-payment of rent, provided that the tenant could prove that inability to pay was as a direct result of agricultural and economic depression. The Bill passed through the House of Commons but met with a devastating defeat on 3 August (282 votes to 5) in the large landowning membership of the House of Lords.
"Soon after the rejection of the Bill …there came most disquieting reports from Ireland. There were riots at evictions; tenants who had ventured to take the place of the evicted occupiers were assaulted, their property damaged, their ricks burned, their cattle maimed"
Life of Charles Stewart Parnell by Richard Barry O‘Brien. Published: 1898 Harper & Brothers, New York .
Prime Minister William Gladstone was now acutely aware that a formal inquiry into the land situation in Ireland was needed.
The question was whether the non-payment of rents in Ireland was due to genuine “distress” experienced by tenant farmers or “conspiracy’’. In July 1880 he appointed Lord Bessborough to chair a royal commission to inquire into the workings of the 1870 Land Act and make recommendations for future legislation. The commission went on to interview some 700 witnesses, including eighty landlords and over 500 tenant farmers. In the meantime, the political demand for coercion as a response to the agrarian agitation in Ireland was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Mrs Katherine O'Shea, a well connected member of London society, a niece of a Liberal Lord Chancellor as well as the wife of a fellow Home Rule party member, Captain William O'Shea, MP for Clare 'a dashing but feckless character', now 'made it her business to meet the young bachelor leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party'
'The Uncrowned King of Ireland' by Katherine O'Shea. 1914. New York. 2005 reprint by Nonsuch Publishing Ltd - Introduction by Martin Mansergh. https://www.fadedpage.com/link.php?file=20210152-a5.pdf
In June 1880 the Freeman’s Journal published a letter by John Devoy defending his support for the Irish National Land League.
"Devoy railed against nationalists who might claim that he had betrayed his principles by supporting a partnership with parliamentarians and advocacy of a cause that deviated from the cherished aim of Fenianism, the overthrow of British rule in Ireland through armed revolt. Devoy wrote: ‘With all its shortcomings and all its mistakes… the land movement . . . made it possible to keep alive a national movement in the future’. Scotching rumours that he intended to run for parliament, Devoy said that the part of the movement that operated outside parliament would result in ‘breaking down the present land system or any other similar system’. The similar system he referred to was British rule in Ireland. Devoy felt that ‘this work of organisation, this extra parliamentary propaganda, is only now fairly initiated’. He urged clever, ambitious young men to look to the future: to organise, counsel and educate the people ‘for the long and arduous struggle before them’ rather than seek to strut around London as members of parliament."
Frank Rynne in History Ireland, 2008. https://www.historyireland.com/this-extra-parliamentary-propaganda-land-league-posters/
Later that month, the Compensation for Disturbance Bill (Ireland - 1880), was introduced to parliament by the new Irish Chief Secretary, William Forster, as a temporary measure to both defuse and deal with a deteriorating situation in Ireland brought about by the Irish famine and Land League agitation.
This legislation was to empower courts in certain cases to compensate a tenant upon eviction even if the eviction was for non-payment of rent, provided that the tenant could prove that inability to pay was as a direct result of agricultural and economic depression. The Bill passed through the House of Commons but met with a devastating defeat on 3 August (282 votes to 5) in the large landowning membership of the House of Lords.
"Soon after the rejection of the Bill …there came most disquieting reports from Ireland. There were riots at evictions; tenants who had ventured to take the place of the evicted occupiers were assaulted, their property damaged, their ricks burned, their cattle maimed"
Life of Charles Stewart Parnell by Richard Barry O‘Brien. Published: 1898 Harper & Brothers, New York .
Prime Minister William Gladstone was now acutely aware that a formal inquiry into the land situation in Ireland was needed.
The question was whether the non-payment of rents in Ireland was due to genuine “distress” experienced by tenant farmers or “conspiracy’’. In July 1880 he appointed Lord Bessborough to chair a royal commission to inquire into the workings of the 1870 Land Act and make recommendations for future legislation. The commission went on to interview some 700 witnesses, including eighty landlords and over 500 tenant farmers. In the meantime, the political demand for coercion as a response to the agrarian agitation in Ireland was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Captain O'Shea
In July 1880, Captain William O’Shea, the newly elected Home Rule League MP for Clare and his wife Katharine, invited Parnell to dinner in London in a somewhat blatant effort to advance the Captain's ambitious political career.
William Henry O'Shea (1840–1905), politician and adventurer, was born in Dublin and spent a term at the new Catholic University in Dublin, where the rector, John Henry Newman, regarded him as sufficiently disruptive to expel him. Although he was briefly enrolled at TCD, his father purchased him a commission in the 18th Hussars (1858), where O'Shea lived extravagantly, largely at his family's expense. As a captain, he sold his commission in 1862 to clear his debts and entered a partnership with his uncle, owner of a bank in Madrid. In January 1867, in Brighton, Sussex, after a lengthy courtship, he married Katharine Wood of Bradwell, Essex.
After living briefly with Katharine in Madrid, O'Shea acrimoniously severed his banking partnership and he & Katharine relocated to England, where William tried unsuccessfully to establish a stud farm at Bennington, Hertfordshire. He returned to Spain to manage a mine, which also failed. His marriage became one of convenience, although the couple had three children: a son, Gerard (b. 1870), and two daughters, Norah (b. 1873) and Carmen (b. 1874). William lived mainly in London while Katharine and the children settled (1875) at Eltham, Kent, near her generous but demanding widowed aunt, Mrs Maria Wood (‘Aunt Ben’).
Since Katharine's father's death (1866) Aunt Ben had financially supported her and, by extension, Capt. O'Shea. He benefited sufficiently to endure an empty marriage in the hope of future good fortune through Mrs Wood's will. Although living apart (she at successive addresses in Brighton), he and Katharine appeared together in public to support his political aspirations.
Encouraged by Liberal friends in Ireland, O'Shea was elected home rule MP for Co. Clare (April 1880). At heart he remained a Liberal (or ‘whig’, to his detractors in the Irish party, which had an uneasy working relationship with the Liberals). He was distrusted by his colleagues and weak in political acumen
Over dinner, Parnell & Mrs O'Shea were taken with each other to the extent that by October he was writing to her that:
‘something from you seems a necessary part of my daily existence, and if I have to go a day without even a telegram, it seems dreadful.'
Here's broadcaster & historian Myles Dungan on Captain William & Katharine O'Shea's stories - click to listen:
Meanwhile, as agrarian violence increased dramatically, so did evictions, Parnell & The Land League saw the need to replace violent agitation with country-wide mass meetings, advocating a non-violent policy course of action.
Faced with diminished incomes due to reduction or non-payments of rents, landlords adopted ever more ruthless modes of eviction. Between 1877 and 1880 a total of 23,551 evictions were recorded involving at least 117,700 family members. Evictions peaked at 4,439 in 1881 - five times the 1879 level.
Parliament was prorogued on 7 September and Parnell returned to Ireland where he continued land agitation.
Faced with diminished incomes due to reduction or non-payments of rents, landlords adopted ever more ruthless modes of eviction. Between 1877 and 1880 a total of 23,551 evictions were recorded involving at least 117,700 family members. Evictions peaked at 4,439 in 1881 - five times the 1879 level.
Parliament was prorogued on 7 September and Parnell returned to Ireland where he continued land agitation.
Eviction
On an unknown date during 1880, widower Denis Murphy and his young family; Patrick (1863-1887), Kate (1865-1913), Thomas Joseph (1867-1948) & the nine year old Margaret (1871-1951) were evicted from their farm and home in Mullaghroe, Ovens - lands owned by the 7th Baron Lord Carbery of Castle Freke, but occupied and farmed for at least two or more family generations.
It's unknown if this eviction was due to Denis's political involvement and activities with the Land League, possible opposition to the landowner Lord Carbery and estate agents or an inability to pay rents or other expenses. Papers relating to the Carbery Estate are held privately in Britain and are not currently available.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the emotional & financial significance of evictions in nineteenth-century Ireland.
A family, either voluntarily or forcibly removed from their home irrespective of weather, with no refuge but friends, the workhouse, destitution or emigration. The misery and cruelty of dispossession of home and land that became etched in collective memory and was well depicted in prose and verse, in paintings, and in periodical illustrations such as published by the Illustrated London News and here in a selection of photographs taken in the mid 1880s of evictions on the Vandaleur Estates in Co. Clare:
Above: Evictions on the Vandeleur estate, Kilrush & Moyasta, Co. Clare in July 1888. These twenty one evictions were reported internationally & each eviction group consisted of 20 bailiffs, with axes, crowbars, ladders, and battering rams. They were accompanied by a troop of Hussars, 2 companies of soldiers, and about 250 policemen. Images courtesy of The National Library of Ireland.
Boycott!
A key meeting took place on 19 September 1880, when Parnell gave his celebrated 'moral Coventry' speech in Ennis, County Clare to an audience of Land League members. Here he asked the crowd, "What do you do with a tenant who bids for a farm from which his neighbour has been evicted?" The crowd strongly responded with various shouts of "kill him", "shoot him". Parnell replied: "I wish to point out to you a very much better way – a more Christian and charitable way, which will give the lost man an opportunity of repenting. Bitter opposition to landlordism which had continued to smoulder throughout the island for much of the previous years was now fanned to a flame that moved thousands to action.
The Land League's powerful weapon of non-violent social ostracism was used for the first time on the Co. Mayo estate of an absentee landlord, Lord Erne. |
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As harvests had been poor throughout Ireland in the summer of 1880, Lord Erne offered his tenants a ten percent reduction in their rents. In September, protesting tenants called for a twenty-five percent reduction, which Lord Erne refused. Lord Erne then attempted to evict eleven tenants from the land through his land agent, Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott.
Within days, Boycott soon found himself isolated – his workers stopped work in the fields and stables, as well as in his house. Local businessmen stopped trading with him, and the local postman refused to deliver mail. The concerted action taken against him meant that Boycott was unable to hire anyone to harvest Lord Erne's crops. It took fifty sympathisers from Monaghan, over 1,000 troops and police as well as funding from a British newspaper to save Boycott's crops - and at a cost of over ten times their value. As Parnell put it, the government had 'paid one shilling for every turnip dug out of Boycott's land'. This was a massive victory for the Land League as the Irish Administration could not carry out any similiar actions in Ireland - and the boycott became an efficient tool of social and economic ostracism. Soon, the new word was everywhere. The New-York Tribune reporter, James Redpath, first wrote of the boycott in the international press. The Irish author, George Moore, reported: 'Like a comet the verb 'boycott' appeared.' |
October 3, 1880. A nationwide "Day of Action"
A nationwide 'Day of Action' was called for October 3, 1880 with the Land League sponsoring fourteen large meetings throughout Ireland, with the largest to be held in Cork and critically, to be attended by the city's MP, Parnell.
A newspaper report from September 24th commented that every 'Nationalist' farmer from far and wide was being encouraged to bring his horse to the Blarney railways station so that a mounted escort numbering as many as 2,000 could be provided for Parnell from Blarney to the city.
The nationalist cause in Cork at the time, was in fact, divided into several confusing and mutually hostile sections. One of these groups was the local branch of the Land League which included several prominent Fenians in its ranks, others were the Vintners Association, members of the City Council, trade societies and the Nationalists, which included members from all these groupings.
This confusion was about to become quite apparent with Parnell's arrival in the city.
Historian Maura Murphy explains the complexities of the Cork political scene of the time:
"Each section of the nationalist side was vying with the others in paying respects to the new MP. The management of the 1880 demonstration was monopolised by the Land League branch, who claimed that Parnell was being publically honoured on this occasion in his capacity as leader of the Land League. The nationalist town councillors, for their part, insisted that the affair was intended to celebrate Parnell's admission as a freeman of the city. Another group, Parnell's former election committee, itself including a number of town councillors and Land Leaguers, refused to co-operate in organising a demonstration which, they claimed, should have been granted solely to celebrate Parnell's election victory. The extreme Fenian element…had no love whatever for Parnell. They predictably refused to participate in the demonstration, considering it as a betrayal of the militant separatist tradition.
Murphy, M. (1979). Fenianism, Parnellism and the Cork Trades, 1860-1900. Saothar, 5, 27–38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23195175
Parnell in Cork
On 3 October 1880, Parnell made his triumphant return trip to Cork and it was an event which saw huge numbers estimated in excess of 100,000 flocking to the city from towns, villages and the surrounding countryside
"One journalist, who made the trip out to Blarney to see the day unfold first-hand, reported that a drive of three quarters of an hour brought him to the village “universally identified with dulcet persuasiveness of speech”. Initially things appeared calm and quiet until he came upon the hotel which was heaving with “more or less bona fide travellers vigorously elbowing each other in the quest after liquid refreshments”. Several open carriages for Mr. Parnell and his election committee were stationed along the “Main Street”, while other cars of various shapes and sizes were backed into all kinds of nooks and distributed file-wise along the roadway
They belonged to “eager sightseers of both sexes” who were either clambering in or out or simply sitting in them waiting expectantly. Having passed the square on his way to Blarney train station, our reporter found his progress slowed by a body of horsemen composed of farmers and farmers’ sons, who had formed themselves into a “cavalry escort” for the great man. Beyond them, the road (this would have been the Station Road) was densely thronged as far as the station, the hedges lined with spectators “and the fields thickly dotted with country people in their holiday attire” (their Sunday best). A distant cheer coming from the direction of the station announced that the Member for Cork City had arrived..."
Brian Gabriel, Blarney & District Historical Society.
The master of Avondale made a short speech outside the train station in Blarney to please the hundreds who had waited there since early morning for his arrival. Then the cortege set off for Cork City, but as it did, six masked men brandishing revolvers rode up, stopped Parnell’s carriage and ordered two of its occupants, Cork Land League officials Mr Cronin and Mr O'Brien to remove themselves - which they quickly did. Some journalists reported that both Cronin & O'Brien were left cooling their heels by the roadside and had to walk back to the city while others filed copy that both men were detained for the afternoon before being released.
The reasons for this interruption were not immediately clear and naturally enough, neither of the duo were willing to volunteer much information to the police at the time. Parnell no doubt enjoyed the extra leg room for the remainder of the journey but was anxious to underline both his and the Land League's adherence to non-violence.
It all came out in the wash some years later. Weeks before the arrival of Parnell, both O’Brien and Cronin were chairing a Land League meeting in Douglas where they strongly condemned a Fenian raid for arms on a ship, The Juno, at Passage West, when 40 cases of antiquated firearms were taken.
The reasons for this interruption were not immediately clear and naturally enough, neither of the duo were willing to volunteer much information to the police at the time. Parnell no doubt enjoyed the extra leg room for the remainder of the journey but was anxious to underline both his and the Land League's adherence to non-violence.
It all came out in the wash some years later. Weeks before the arrival of Parnell, both O’Brien and Cronin were chairing a Land League meeting in Douglas where they strongly condemned a Fenian raid for arms on a ship, The Juno, at Passage West, when 40 cases of antiquated firearms were taken.
"The Constitutionalists in the local branch of the League were much exercised by this act. They were anxious, fearing that some suspicion might rest on their organisation, to vindicate themselves and to show their loyalty. Accordingly, a resolution was proposed by Mr. Cronin and seconded by Mr. J. O‘Brien declaring that "we deeply regret that a robbery of useless old firearms has taken place, that we condemn lawlessness in any shape, and we believe the occurrence must have been effected by those who desire to see a renewal of the Coercion Acts inflicted upon this country, and who wish to give the Government good value for their secret service money.“…the resolution was triumphantly carried. But the Fenians were resolved to teach the Constitutionalists in the League a lesson which should not be forgotten… They were resolved that no man who had struck at Fenianism should join in the welcome to Parnell."
Life of Charles Stewart Parnell 1846 - 1891 by Richard Barry O‘Brien, 1847-1918 of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at –Law Published: 1898 Harper & Brothers, New York .
To further disrupt Parnell's grand entry to Cork city, the Cork Examiner reported that some 1,500 Fenians took up position at the head of the Parnell's celebratory procession, slowing it to a crawl by marching before it at a snail's pace to Cork.
Whether a snail’s pace or not, the procession was cheered throughout as it made it’s way down Shanakiel Road and Sundays Well. It then crossed Wellington Bridge where Parnell was met by the Mayor with his ceremonial mace along with members of the Corporation decked out head to toe in ceremonial gowns. It had already taken several hours to get to just that stage.
The procession went down Western Road where bands assembled there struck up rebel rousing favourites such as ‘The Wearing of the Green’ and ‘Let Erin Remember.’ It was a very impressive reception in the city and created a party like atmosphere in the streets on that winter evening.
From Western Road Parnell’s procession turned up for North Main Street crossing the North Gate Bridge and down the quays and over St. Patrick’s Bridge. When the procession crossed onto St Patrick Street it was met by a 60,000 strong crowd waving flags, holding banners aloft and giving an outrageous outpouring of affection.
On arrival at his suite in the Royal Victoria Hotel, the no doubt exhausted Parnell then addressed the gathered crowd as he had done on election the previous April.
Following the success of his arrival in Cork, on Monday, 4th October from his suite in the Royal Victoria Hotel in the city centre, Parnell wrote personal letters to a number of prominent Cork merchants and farmers, requesting their attendance at a meeting to elect officers and reorganise the Land League the following Saturday.
The following letter was received by Denis Murphy:
Royal Victoria Hotel, Cork
4th Oct 1880 [Monday]
Dear Sir
The officers of the Cork Land League resigned owing to the expiration of their term of office.
I have called a meeting of all those interested in the movement for Saturday next [9 October] at two o'clock in this hotel for the purpose of electing fresh officers and reorganising the Land League.
I trust that we may be favoured with your attendance and co-operation on this occasion.
Yours truly
Chas. S. Parnell.
Letter courtesy of Colm O'Sullivan.
A more general invitation was issued in the press for interested parties to attend the following Saturday.
Although Parnell had given every impression he would be present at this meeting in Cork on the 9th and at yet another gathering in Roscommon on Sunday 10th, he 'unaccountably failed to appear at these meetings'.
The reason for his non-appearance?
Officially, the reason given was urgent parliamentary business in the House of Commons necessitating his return to London.
In reality, Parnell was certainly busy in London that weekend, but far from parliamentary matters.
With Captain O'Shea conveniently out of town in Paris, Parnell was "secretly completing the conquest of Mrs O'Shea".
Paul Smith. London Review of Books' April 1994. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v16/n07/paul-smith/westminster-s-irishman
While certainly aware of the affair between Parnell and his somewhat estranged wife, O'Shea accommodated it to preserve his political and financial interests.
Without Parnell, the Saturday afternoon meeting went ahead and was well attended and with the objective of reforming the Land League Cork branch.
Here's how the Puget Sound Weekly Argus in Washington State on the west coast of the US reported on Parnell's call for the Saturday afternoon meeting in Cork:
Cork in 1879-1880
As a result of increased pressure on the government by Land League boycotting, the task of dealing with increasing tension in Ireland fell to the Irish Chief Secretary, William Foster. His earlier attempts at conciliation to defuse the situation with the Compensation for Disturbance Bill failed when the legislation was defeated in the House of Lords in August 1880. So, the Chief Secretary went the somewhat easier route of coercion and the Land League leaders including Parnell & Davitt were arrested. Their trial began on 23 December and spectacularly collapsed one month later when the jury disagreed. Opposite: Parnell's 1880 Christmas Card. This card forms part of a collection assembled by Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap. (1900-1970), the editor of ‘The Capuchin Annual’. Fr. Senan also managed to obtain Parnell’s autograph slip. Thanks to The Capuchin Archives. |
The Irish Grievance Grinder and His Monkey
John Gordon Thomson (1841-1911)
Dalziel Brothers, engravers
Fun
(6 October 1880: 137
Courtesy of the HathiTrust Digital Library and Princeton University.
The monkey, whose hat band bears the word “assassin,” is controlled by the organ grinder, Charles Stewart Parnell.
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With the Land War in Ireland showing no signs of abating and agrarian unrest increasing, Prime Minister Gladstone, attempted to defuse the growing situation. The Queen's speech before Parliament in January, gave notice that a Land Bill would be introduced for Ireland and unusually, along with a coercion bill to curb Irish lawlessness. The Protection of Persons and Property (Ireland) Act 1881, also called the Coercion Act, which allowed for internment without trial of those suspected of involvement in the Land War in Ireland became law in March 1881 with, trial by jury & habeas corpus suspended along with facilitating 'proclaiming' (usually a strict curfew and suspension of civil rights) entire districts but only after a long and troubled passage through Parliament which saw extensive filibustering and the expulsion of 36 Irish MPS.
Irish nationalists were dismayed that the coercion bill had been introduced by their former allies, the Liberals rather than their customary opponents, the Conservatives. In a more conciliatory gesture, a second Land Law (Ireland) Act (1881) passed in April, recognising tenant rights and establishing a Land Commission & Land Court with authority to reduce rents and enable some tenants to buy their farms. These halted evictions, but not where tenant's rent was in arrears. The Act also did not provide a regulation for rent-arrears or rent-adjustments (in the case of poor harvests or deteriorated economic conditions) and as to the definition of a fair rent, this was left to the the discretion of the Land Court judges. As Gladstone put it, this Act was designed not to destroy landlordism, but merely to make it impossible. The legislation itself did go a long way to meeting the original demand for the so called three 'Fs' - fair rent, fixity of tenure and freedom of sale. At the same time however many of those engaged in the Land War now believed that only a more radical solution involving a transfer of ownership from tenant to landlord would and could work. As Gladstone's Land Act had fallen far short of what was expected, Parnell rejected the legislation, crossed the floor of the House of Commons and joined the opposition Conservatives. Meanwhile in Parnell's personal life, Captain O'Shea now 'found out' about his wife’s newly established relationship with Parnell and challenged the Irish Party leader – his political boss – to a duel. When Parnell accepted with a tad too much enthusiasm, O’Shea suddenly changed his mind about pistols at dawn and let it slide. From then on he demanded and received as much advantage from Parnell as he could to keep the affair private. Meanwhile O'Shea bided his time for Katharine’s wealthy aunt to die and leave her a fortune from which he assumed he would benefit. Parnell privately conceded that Gladstone's reform was far-reaching, but for political reasons he was ostensibly outwardly critical so as to keep the factions that supported him together - describing Gladstone at Wexford on 9 October as: '.. this masquerading knight errant, this pretending champion of the rights of every other nation except those of the Irish nation'. This retort prompted the arrest of Parnell & other Land League leaders on 13 October and jailing without trial in Kilmainham Jail under the provisions of the Protection of Person and Property Coercion Act introduced earlier that year. Being jailed by the English prime minister only added to Parnell’s popularity among the Irish. Parnell swiftly issued the No Rent Manifesto on 18 October, calling for a national tenant farmer rent strike in a campaign of passive resistance hoping to bring pressure on the government. However, the Manifesto alienated influential members of the Catholic hierarchy and many members of the Land League who stood to benefit under the new Land Act. The Government moved as quickly, declaring the Land League an illegal organisation on 20 October. While Parnell was in Kilmainham, Katherine O’Shea gave birth to their first daughter, Sophie, who died within two months. With the Land League paralysed by arrests and repression, Fanny Parnell kept the movement alive through the 'Ladies Land League'. Historian R. F. Foster argues that the Land League by late 1881 had: "reinforced the politicization of rural Catholic nationalist Ireland, partly by defining that identity against urbanization, landlordism, Englishness and—implicitly—Protestantism." The situation in Ireland deteriorated dramatically during the winter of 1881, as Parnell and Land League leaders imprisoned, agrarian disturbances increased and the Royal Irish Constabulary battled a rising crime rate. |
Shutting Them Up
John Gordon Thomson (1841-1911) Mr. Bull: — “Let you attend to your parliamentary duties? No, thank you; I'll just hand you over as a Christmas present to justice.” An 1882 jingoistic cartoon embodying the disastrous effects of the Coercion Acts, which gave the Viceroy of Ireland the power to imprison Irish Nationalists without charge. Courtesy of the HathiTrust Digital Library and Princeton University.
Led Astray. The Irish Will o’ the Wisp
John Gordon Thomson (1841-1911)
Dalziel Brothers, engravers
Fun
(27 October 1880): 167
Courtesy of the HathiTrust Digital Library and Princeton University.
The Land League and its quest for justice for tenant farmers supposedly leads the Irish into a metaphorical swamp.
William 'Buckshot' Foster (1818-1886) Liberal politician and Chief Secretary of Ireland 1880-82. Nicknamed 'Buckshot' as he substituted buckshot for bullets in the RIC - which in fact made the police more likely to open fire. Resigned as Chief Secretary in 1882 and succeeded by Lord Frederick Cavendish.
"Earl Spencer is sailing an even keel between Nationalists and Orangemen" from a speech by Joseph Chamberlain. The ship's wheel is the 1871 Crimes Act with Freedom of Speech trampled underfoot and the Nationalists taking backhanders from the Orangemen. Published by the United Ireland newspaper, January 1884.
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Using Captain William O'Shea as an intermediary, negotiations between the government & Parnell opened during the spring. By May, Parnell advised that if the Government would settle the existing tenant rent-arrears issues, that he was confident that he would be able to curtail violent crimes. It has been suggested that O’Shea won this concession, which reflected well on him, by threatening Parnell with public exposure of his affair with Mrs O’Shea.
Gladstone agreed to the proposal, and in what became known as 'The Kilmainham Treaty', released Parnell and other leaders on 2 May. The Irish Chief Secretary Foster resigned in disgust (replaced by Lord Frederick Cavendish). Gladstone kept his side of the arrangement by subsequently having the Arrears of Rent (Ireland) Act 1882 enacted. The government paid the landlords £800,000 in back rent owed by 130,000 tenant farmers which allowed most tenants to appeal for fair rent before the land courts. Parnell withdrew the No Rent Manifesto, undertook to move against agrarian crime, to support the 1881 Land Act and to co-operate with the Liberal Party in supporting Liberal principles and measures of general reform. This effectively brought the main phase of the Land War to a conclusion. Parnell's Kilmainham Treaty, marked a critical turning point in the development of his leadership and the point when he returned to parliamentary and constitutional politics and the focus of Home Rule for Ireland. This resulted in the loss of support from John Devoy & America's Clan na Gael. However, the agreement was severely challenged by the murder four days later on 6 May 1882 of two most senior British officials in Ireland, Chief Secretary Lord Frederick Cavendish, and his Under-Secretary, T. H. Burke in what became known as 'The Phoenix Park Murders' in Dublin by members of The Invincibles, a breakaway faction of the IRB. Following the murders, Davitt and other prominent members left the IRB, and many rank-and-file Fenians drifted into the Home Rule movement. For the next 20 years, the IRB ceased to be an important force in Irish politics, leaving Parnell and his party the leaders of the nationalist movement in Ireland with Parliamentary constitutionalism as the sole process towards Home Rule until 1914 and the advent of the First World War. Parnell now used his huge support base to advance Home Rule and resurrected the suppressed Land League in October 1882, as the Irish National League (INL). The INL combined moderate agrarianism, a Home Rule programme with electoral functions, was hierarchical and autocratic in structure with Parnell wielding immense authority and direct parliamentary control. An alliance between the tightly disciplined INL and the Catholic Church was one of the main factors for the revitalisation of the national Home Rule cause after 1882. Parnell saw that the explicit endorsement of Catholicism was of vital importance to the success of this venture and worked in close co-operation with the Catholic hierarchy in consolidating its hold over the Irish electorate. The leaders of the Catholic Church largely recognised the Parnellite party as guardians of church interests, despite uneasiness within a powerful lay leadership. The INL and its continued agrarian agitation led to the passing of several Irish Land Acts that over three decades changed the face of Irish land ownership, replacing large Anglo-Irish estates with tenant ownership. Although Parnell owned the rich landed estate of Avondale in Wicklow, he was seriously in debt by 1882 and was forced to consider selling the property. When news of this got out, a national collection was started and, although the Vatican and some of the Irish hierarchy strongly opposed it, the public subscribed eagerly to the fund. In December 1883, a sum of £38k ( a staggering £5.1m/€5.9m in 2022 values) was presented along with a written and illuminated personal tribute. During 1883 & 1884, what became known as the Fenian Dynamite Campaign, as Fenians targeted British infrastructure, government, military and police with dynamite explosives. Over 80 people were injured in the attacks and one young boy was killed, as well as two of the bombers in the 1884 attack on London Bridge. Led by Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa and other Irishmen exiled in the United States, this was a form of asymmetrical warfare financed from the Clan na Gael 'Skirmishing Fund'. The campaign was not approved by the more moderate leadership of Clan na Gael and also served to alienate some British support for Irish reform. Michael Cusack, Maurice Davin and other Gaelic games enthusiasts meet to establish the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) on Saturday, November 1, 1884, in Hayes' Hotel, Thurles, Co. Tipperary. In December 1884, the Representation of the People Act ("Third Reform Act") extended the franchise uniformly across the U.K. to all male tenants paying a £10 rental or occupying land to that value, and restrictions on multiple voting; this increases the Irish electorate from 126,000 to 738,000. . 'Boycotting the Pope' from Puck Magazine, New York. June 6, 1883 . Never a publication to shy away from anti-Irish & anti-Catholic sentiment - here's the Irish population paying homage & funds to Parnell and ignoring the Pope - note the empty 'Peters Pence' collection bucket and a basket of absolution certificates.
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Denis Murphy in 1883
Following the trauma of eviction c.1880 from the family farm and home in Mullagroe, Ovens, Co. Cork, Denis Murphy and his young family may have lived for a time with Denis's uncle, Bartholomew Martin Murphy, also a tenant farmer locally in Knockanemore. These were lands owned by another landlord, John Hawkes. However, it is unknown where Denis and family resided between 1880 & 1883. Bartholomew's son, Michael (1841-1917) took over the family land holding in Knockanemore c.1883. We catch up with Denis again in 1883:
Following the trauma of eviction c.1880 from the family farm and home in Mullagroe, Ovens, Co. Cork, Denis Murphy and his young family may have lived for a time with Denis's uncle, Bartholomew Martin Murphy, also a tenant farmer locally in Knockanemore. These were lands owned by another landlord, John Hawkes. However, it is unknown where Denis and family resided between 1880 & 1883. Bartholomew's son, Michael (1841-1917) took over the family land holding in Knockanemore c.1883. We catch up with Denis again in 1883:
In May 1883, a position of Caretaker of the Marina in Cork City was advertised by the Borough of Cork.
This was a new position offered by Cork Corporation. With a salary of 15 shillings per week (£39 per annum or around £5270/€6145 in 2022 values) with a residence, fuel and uniform provided. In return, the applicant was to "devote his exclusive time to the duties of this office" - simply put, the caretaker was on duty 24/7/365. Denis Murphy applied & was successful, and he with his young family of Patrick (1863-1887), Kate (1865-1913), Thomas Joseph (1867-1948) & Margaret (1871-1951) took up residence. Denis would remain as Caretaker of the Marina until his death in 1913, giving thirty years continuous service. Denis' great-grandson, retired Associate Professor of Physics UCC, Colm O'Sullivan recalls that his grandfather, Thomas Joseph shortly after arriving at the Marina with his family, '…set himself up as a barrow boy selling refreshments to Cork's citizens and visitors enjoying the leisure that the Marina provided and on race days, to patrons of the Cork Park Racecourse' |
Areas like the Marina and the Mardyke were considered as important public & recreational spaces in the late 19th century. Here's the history of the Marina:
Much of the land on the south bank of the Lee from the City Hall to Blackrock Castle is reclaimed slobland. In the 1760's, Cork Corporation began the construction of the Navigation Wall, which was also called the New Wall. The Navigation Wall was built to prevent the silting up of the river channel with mud. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Cork Harbour Commissioners began dredging the south slobland to allow larger ships, with a greater draught of water, access to the city quay. The dredged-up material was deposited behind the Navigation Wall. This deposit of compacted mud and silt eventually formed the Marina.
During the Great Famine, the deepening of the river created jobs for 1,000 men who worked on widening the physical dock of the Navigation Wall. In essence a fine road was constructed, which linked into Cork’s South Docks. To give an aesthetic to the new road, rows of elm trees was planted c.1856 by Prof. Edmund Murphy of Queen’s College Cork (now UCC). When the promenade had been completed in 1870, the Gaelic poet and scholar Donncha Ó Floinn suggested to the Improvements Committee of Cork Corporation that it be named Slí na hAbhann, which means the 'pathway by the river'.
However, Ó Floinn's proposal was defeated. The matter came before the Improvements Committee again in 1872. This time Ó Floinn suggested that the promenade be named 'The Marina'. He pointed out that 'The Marina' was the name given to recently reclaimed land near Palermo in Sicily. In July 1872, Cork Corporation formally adopted 'The Marina' as the name of the new promenade. Dedicated funding was followed up by the Council of Corporation of Cork in the 1870s and new structures appeared– an elaborate care-taker’s lodge (in 1890), decorative drinking fountains, a flag post symbolic of shipping, two canons mounted from the Crimean War, a bandstand, along with rowing clubs, and the nearby Cork City Park Racecourse (established in 1869 by businessman John Arnott - later taken over by Ford Manufacturing 1917-1984)
Thanks to askaboutireland.ie & corkheritage.ie
Today however, little remains of the 19th century public facilities - gone are the caretaker's lodge, the band-stand, drinking fountains and other little aspects of public park life.
Much of the land on the south bank of the Lee from the City Hall to Blackrock Castle is reclaimed slobland. In the 1760's, Cork Corporation began the construction of the Navigation Wall, which was also called the New Wall. The Navigation Wall was built to prevent the silting up of the river channel with mud. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Cork Harbour Commissioners began dredging the south slobland to allow larger ships, with a greater draught of water, access to the city quay. The dredged-up material was deposited behind the Navigation Wall. This deposit of compacted mud and silt eventually formed the Marina.
During the Great Famine, the deepening of the river created jobs for 1,000 men who worked on widening the physical dock of the Navigation Wall. In essence a fine road was constructed, which linked into Cork’s South Docks. To give an aesthetic to the new road, rows of elm trees was planted c.1856 by Prof. Edmund Murphy of Queen’s College Cork (now UCC). When the promenade had been completed in 1870, the Gaelic poet and scholar Donncha Ó Floinn suggested to the Improvements Committee of Cork Corporation that it be named Slí na hAbhann, which means the 'pathway by the river'.
However, Ó Floinn's proposal was defeated. The matter came before the Improvements Committee again in 1872. This time Ó Floinn suggested that the promenade be named 'The Marina'. He pointed out that 'The Marina' was the name given to recently reclaimed land near Palermo in Sicily. In July 1872, Cork Corporation formally adopted 'The Marina' as the name of the new promenade. Dedicated funding was followed up by the Council of Corporation of Cork in the 1870s and new structures appeared– an elaborate care-taker’s lodge (in 1890), decorative drinking fountains, a flag post symbolic of shipping, two canons mounted from the Crimean War, a bandstand, along with rowing clubs, and the nearby Cork City Park Racecourse (established in 1869 by businessman John Arnott - later taken over by Ford Manufacturing 1917-1984)
Thanks to askaboutireland.ie & corkheritage.ie
Today however, little remains of the 19th century public facilities - gone are the caretaker's lodge, the band-stand, drinking fountains and other little aspects of public park life.
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In June, In June 1885 Parnell, frustrated with the slow pace of reform under the Liberals, sided with the Conservatives and brought down Gladstone’s administration in a vote of no confidence following criticism of the fall of Khartoum and violence in Ireland. Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury forms a new Conservative government.
A further piece of legislation relating to the land issue in Ireland became law - unusually this was completed by the Conservative government under Lord Sailsbury: The Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act 1885 - commonly known as the Ashbourne Act, provided for public money to be made available to allow loans to tenants who wished to buy their own land holdings. Terms of 4% over 48 years and informally gave rights to the Irish tenant farmer. It has been argued that the Act was passed to win the support of Charles Stewart Parnell. Salisbury knew that his government would not last long as the Liberal Party had an overall majority. Salisbury realised that he would need Irish Party support to maintain power. Therefore, the Ashbourne act was a way to win over Parnell while keeping William Ewart Gladstone on the opposition benches. In June 1885 Parnell, frustrated with the slow pace of reform under the Liberals, sided with the Conservatives and brought down Gladstone’s administration. Largely too little, too late for the Conservatives. The government fell by the end of the year and a December general election saw the Gladstone's Liberal Party won most seats but not an overall majority. Parnell and the Irish Nationalists held the balance of power between them and the Conservatives who sat with an increasing number of allied Unionist MPs. This exacerbated divisions within the Liberals over Irish Home Rule and led to a Liberal split and another general election the following year. Parnell agreed to support the Liberals in return for a government commitment to introducing Home Rule for Ireland. In less than 10 years he had gone from solitary voice of obstruction to kingmaker. The 1885 election was the first after an extension of the franchise and redistribution of seats. For the first time a majority of adult males could vote and most constituencies by law returned a single member to Parliament. However, while Home Rule divided the Liberals, it also effectively divided Ireland: a significant minority of Unionists (largely based in Ulster) were opposed to the concept of any form of Home Rule and a Dublin parliament. The revived Orange Order quickly mobilized the opposition, warning that a Dublin parliament dominated by Catholics and nationalists would discriminate against them and would impose tariffs on trade with Great Britain. (Whilst most of Ireland was primarily agricultural, north-east Ulster was the location of almost all the island's heavy industry and would have been affected by any tariff barriers imposed by a Dublin parliament.) |
May 1885. Weekly Freeman Journal by O'Hea, J. F. (1838-1922)
A distressed Erin lies on sick bed, covered with a torn Union Jack while three quack doctors [Joseph Chamberlain, Sir Charles Dilke and the Lord Lieutenant John Poyntz Spencer] debate on whether to treat her with a medicine of concession or a dose of coercion.
Tom Merry was the pen name of William Mecham (1853 – 1902). Merry found fame with his brightly coloured, politically topically satirical cartoons. These were published as centrefolds in the St Stephen's Review. London & Puck Magazine in the United States. Here he depicts Ireland as the unhappy member of Queen Victoria's British Commonwealth family, leaving the 'happy & contented' group with his rifle, shillelagh and dynamite.
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In January, Ulster Unionists began to lobby against the perceived threat of the Irish Home Rule movement, establishing the Ulster Loyal Anti-Repeal Union in Belfast.
William Gladstone, leader of the opposition Liberal Party committed himself 'like a ferocious evangelist' to introducing Home Rule as "justice for Ireland". Prime Minister Lord Salisbury refused to do likewise and so Parnell switched the parliamentary support of his MPs from the Conservatives to the Liberals. Gladstone with support from the Irish Parliamentary Party took office on 27 January, pledging the introduction of a Home Rule Bill. Parnell's leadership was put to the test in February, when he forced the candidature of Captain William O'Shea, who had negotiated the Kilmainham Treaty, for a Galway by-election. O'Shea had previously stood for the Liberals in Liverpool in 1885 & lost. Parnell was both eager to see an IPP victory in Galway but also concious of O'Shea's power to expose the affair with Katharine. Parnell overruled his horrified lieutenants Healy, Dillon and O'Brien who were not in favour of O'Shea, but the Captain ran for the seat and won. Galway was the harbinger of the fatal crisis to come. On 8 April, Gladstone introduces the Government of Ireland Bill (the first Irish Home Rule Bill) in the House of Commons with the objective to establish an Irish legislature, although large imperial issues were to be reserved to the Westminster parliament. During the debates on the Bill, Financial Secretary to the Treasury H.H. Fowler states his support for the Bill which in his words would bring about a "real Union – not an act of Parliament Union – but a moral Union, a Union of heart and soul between two Sister Nations". Conservative Lord Randolph Churchill voices his opposition with the slogan "Ulster will fight, Ulster will be right" and "The Orange card is the one to play". 8 June and the Irish Home Rule Bill fails to pass in Parliament by 30 votes: 343–313. ( A notable abstention was Captain O'Shea. Following insinuations of the Parnell affair and his complicity in it appearing in the Pall Mall Gazette, O'Shea abstained from voting on the Irish Home Rule bill and resigned his parliamentary seat the following day.) The Bill splits the Liberal Party and Ulster Unionists celebrate its defeat, leading to an upsurge in sectarian violence particularly in Belfast. During June and July 1886, the number of dead from rioting and sectarian attacks was put officially at 31 but it is likely the true figure was around 50. 12 June and Gladstone calls for a dissolution of Parliament and a July general election. The 1886 election campaign itself was then largely fought on the question of Home Rule and Gladstone hoped to repeat his triumph of 1868, when he fought and won a general election to obtain a mandate for Irish Disestablishment (which had been a major cause of dispute between Conservatives and Liberals since the 1830s). Gladstone, says his biographer, "totally rejected the widespread English view that the Irish had no taste for justice, common sense, moderation or national prosperity and looked only to perpetual strife and dissension." The problem for Gladstone was his rural supporters in England would not support home rule for Ireland nor would the Unionist wing of his own Liberal Party. The Phoenix Park Murders of 1882 came back to haunt both Gladstone and Parnell with some far reaching implications. Gladstone's Minister Lord Hartington was the elder brother of Lord Frederick Cavendish murdered by the Invincibles in May 1882.. Infuriated by the manner of his brother's early death and calls for a Dublin parliament, Hartington split with Gladstone on the Home Rule bills of 1886 and along with Joseph Chamberlain, led the breakaway Liberal Unionist Association, which allied itself to Lord Salisbury's Conservative governments. In the ensuing general election the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists swept the board. The Conservatives and the Liberal Unionist Party returned with a majority of 118 over the Liberals and Parnell's 85 Irish Party seats. Salisbury formed his second government – a minority Conservative government with Liberal Unionist support and Home Rule was to be shelved for seven years until 1893. The following twenty years would see mostly Conservative and Liberal-Unionist coalition governments. In October, the Plan of Campaign was launched. This was a stratagem adopted in Ireland between 1886 and 1891, co-ordinated by Irish politicians for the benefit of tenant farmers, against mainly absentee and rack-rent landlords. It was launched to counter agricultural distress caused by the continual depression in prices of dairy products and cattle from the mid-1870s, which left many tenants in arrears with rent. Bad weather in 1885 and 1886 also caused crop failure, making it harder to pay rents. The Land War of the early 1880s was about to be renewed after evictions increased and outrages became widespread. Undaunted, and certain Home Rule's time would yet come, Parnell in the aftermath of the Home Rule Bill dissociated himself from the launching of the Plan of Campaign, after agrarian war flared up again, fearing to identify Home Rule and constitutional nationalism with militant agrarian violence. His more canny supporters wanted to secure the votes of the growing low-to-middle income electorate and felt that their own campaign would head off any support for the more radical Michael Davitt. By December 1886, Lord Salisbury's Conservative government declared the Campaign to be "an unlawful and criminal conspiracy". |
"In the Lion's Den" - 1887 The Weekly-Freeman cartoon depicting Ireland mauled by the Tory lion. July 1887. Erin(the national personification of Ireland) lies on the floor of a lion's cage as the lion "Tory" prepares to devour her. Gladstone stands outside the cage holding a rifle with the word "Democracy" written on it. Although Erin is lying there, she holds in her right hand a crown or collar with the words "Home Rule" written on it.
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The text of a letter, published by the London 'Times' in March 1887 and eventually found to have been forged, could have dealt a fatal blow to the political career of the 'Uncrowned King of Ireland'
The first of a number of articles, the London Times made the not altogether astonishing allegation of links between Irish parliamentarians and agrarian crime stretching back to the Land War of 1879-82. The series, entitled Parnellism and Crime, appeared to be dying a natural death for want of substance when the Times, on page 8 of its edition of April 18th, published a facsimile of a highly incriminating letter bearing the signature "Chas. S Parnell". A special commission, known as the "Parnell Commission", was proposed to investigate the allegations, as well as investigate links between the Home Rule party and the Fenians, eventually (in 1890) proving the letters forgeries written by Richard Pigott. By the end of the month, on 29 March – the Irish Crimes Act of 1887 is introduced by the newly appointed Irish Chief Secretary, Arthur Balfour in response to the boycott of certain landlords by their tenants (led by the National Land League), again suspending the right to trial of persons suspected of involvement in the boycott. The Crimes Act is passed in September, despite protests from Liberal and Home Rule Members of Parliament, and will continue in force until 1890. The"Perpetual Crimes Act", a Coercion Act aimed at the prevention of boycotting, intimidation, unlawful assembly and the organisation of conspiracies against the payment of agreed rents. The Act abolished trial by jury and resulted in the imprisonment of hundreds of people including over twenty MPs. The act was quickly condemned by the Catholic hierarchy since it was to become a permanent part of the law and did not have to be renewed annually by parliament, but Pope Leo XIII issued the bull Saepe Nos in 1888 which was uncritical of the Acts. Balfour had come into office promising ‘repression as stern as Cromwell’s.’ And though, among contemporary Irish nationalists at least, he became an equivalent hate figure to the 17th century Lord Protector, critical historian Joe Lee remarks that, ‘his “repression” resulted in little more than William O’Brien losing his pants in jail and three people losing their lives in Mitchelstown…a derisory haul that would have left Cromwell turning in his desecrated grave’. Though Balfour was a staunch opponent of Irish self-government, he was not wholly unsympathetic to Irish grievances. Indeed British rule in Ireland from the 1880s onwards was characterised by concession as well as repression, a policy that included extending the powers of local government, land reform and encouraging economic development, known colloquially as ‘killing Home Rule with kindness’. One of the first of these 'kindnesses' followed was the Land Law (Ireland) Act. Balfour's Land Law (Ireland) Act 1887, an extension of the Ashbourne Act of 1885, is passed by Parliament. This was Arthur Balfour's major Land Act, which came at the end of the 'Plan of Campaign' agitation. It provided £33 million for land purchase, but contained many complicated legal clauses, so that it was not put fully into effect until amended five years later. At this point only £13.5m had been used. This Act substituted peasant proprietorship for dual ownership as the principle of land tenure. At the same time Balfour created the Congested Districts Board to deal with distress in impoverished areas of the west of Ireland. 13 November – Bloody Sunday in London as Police clash with radical and Irish nationalist protestors. Patrick Murphy, son of Denis Murphy died aged 24. |
Denis Murphy, as Caretaker of the Marina came to the attention of a certain City Councillor, G.J.O'Donnell in May 1888 and details were reported in the Cork Examiner.
The Councillor was so exorcised with an issue concerning Caretaker Murphy that he raised it at a Corporation Public Health Committee meeting on 15 May. It seems that Denis, as Councillor O'Donnell put it, 'had been gradually encroaching on the public grounds by extending his potato and cabbage patches'. O'Donnell further commented that Denis had 'originally been a farmer, and was now following out his old taste' and warned that if the Council allowed him to continue 'at this rate he would soon enclose twelve or fourteen acres'. That's quite a few potatoes and cabbages but the Corpo Public Health committee were having none of it. Councillor Murphy remarked that the matter had nothing to do with public health and Councillor Walsh rapping O'Donnell's knuckles with the remark that the Council were wasting their time 'discussing a matter not within their province'. Well within their province however was the revelation as to what the City municipal sewer cleaning policy was. Small wonder the good citizens of Blackrock and the 'promenaders on the Marina' were concerned and found the issue offensive. American journalist, William Hurlbert, visiting in 1888 thought that the Irish nationalist complaints of ‘English tyranny’ were histrionic. He characterised the Chief Secretary, Arthur Balfour, nicknamed ‘Bloody Balfour’, as the ‘mildest mannered and most sensible despot who ever trampled the liberties of a free people’ and that ‘the rule of the [nationalist] Land League is the only coercion to which Ireland is subjected’ Irish members of the British House of Commons attempt to introduce an Irish Local Government Bill; however the Bill is opposed by Chief Secretary Arthur Balfour. 31 August – Whitechapel murders: the mutilated body of London prostitute Mary Ann Nichols is found, perhaps the first victim of Jack the Ripper, the unidentified serial killer active in the impoverished districts in and around Whitechapel in the East End of London in 1888 |
Katharine O'Shea became the sole beneficiary of her Aunt's will in early 1889, and so the die was cast. However, the Captain held back in case the legacy might prove to be indirectly beneficial to him.
When wily old aunt 'Ben' eventually shuffled off the mortal coil in May 1889, her assets and estate was left in trust in such a way that Katharine's husband was unable to benefit from it. No doubt frustrated yet again with the very public knowledge of the O'Shea-Parnell co-habitation and relationship in a strictly moralistic Victorian Britain, it was only then that Captain O’Shea ‘discovered to his utter shock and horror' – that his wife Katharine & Parnell were in a domestic arrangement and even had three children together. 12 June: Eighty people are killed in the Armagh rail disaster. O'Shea sued for divorce on Christmas Eve 1889. citing Parnell as co-respondent. The case would not come for trial until 15 November 1890. |
One of the few surviving photographs of the Caretaker's Lodge on the Marina. This was a particularly fine example of the Arts & Crafts movement style of architecture of the late 1880s/90s. Note the detail on upper level, the wrap around verandah and well established gardens maintained by Denis Murphy. Built by early 1890, the building was in use until the mid 1970s, when it was demolished to make way for city council sheds and a storage depot. Today, nothing remains of the original building.
In the National Library of Ireland photo archives, there is another photo of the Caretakers Lodge on the Marina, taken from the main walkway (below). Look a little closer and you'll notice two figures in the well maintained gardens, one alongside 'The Marina' sign and what was the Captain Hanson flagpole adjacent. Today little remains of both the lodge and flagpole, except for the base and an inscription which reads: “This flagstaff of Douglas Pine was presented to the Corporation of Cork by Captain Frederick Hanson of the ship Grange – Height 140 feet; diameter at base 16 inches; diameter at top 11 inches; growth 180 years. Erected May 16 1864 – John Francis Maguire, MP, Mayor”. Captain Hanson was an American Navy captain skippering the USS Grange during the Civil War era.
Above - here's a close up of the photograph - it's a reasonable assumption to make that this image captured in time could be Denis Murphy (left, busy in the lodge's garden) and his son, Thomas Joseph looking further down the Marina.
Below is what remains some 130 years later - just a Sebastapol cannon and the ruins of an old shed.
Below is what remains some 130 years later - just a Sebastapol cannon and the ruins of an old shed.
Weekly Freeman - March 1890.Parnell is compared to Caesar by draping the Irish leader in a Roman toga, cape and laurel wreath. Triumphantly raising the green banner of Home Rule in one hand, while the other rests on a shillelagh - Parnell exterminates the three headed hydra of (l-r) Attorney General Sir Richard Webster (Counsel for the Times), PM Lord Salisbury and Richard Piggot, the forger.
"Dropping the Pilot" a political cartoon by Sir John Tenniel, first published in the British magazine Punch on 29 March 1890. Depicts Chancellor Otto von Bismarck as a maritime pilot who is stepping off a ship, perhaps a reference to Plato's ship of state, idly and unconcernedly watched by a young Wilhelm II, German Emperor. Bismarck had resigned as Chancellor at Wilhelm's demand just ten days earlier on 19 March because of political differences.
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Now public knowledge throughout Britain and Ireland, Parnell's domestic arrangement were about to become a political and social scandal. Parnell assured the Irish Party that there was no need to fear the divorce trial and verdict as he would be exonerated. This reassurance seemed to be acceptable as during January 1890, resolutions of confidence in his leadership were passed at various Irish Parliamentary Party meetings throughout the country.
The Parnell Commission reported on it's findings in February 1890. Parnell's name was fully cleared as he was found to have been the victim of an egregious forgery and many of his political associates, to no one’s great surprise, were found to be “sneaking regarders” when it came to the killing and maiming of land-grabbers, constables, bailiffs, agents and landlords. In an out-of-court settlement Parnell accepted £5,000 in damages (£714k/€824 in 2022 values). While this was less than the £100,000 he sought, the legal costs for The Times brought its overall costs to £200,000 (£28.6m/€33m) and almost bankrupted the newspaper. When Parnell re-entered parliament after he was vindicated, he received a standing ovation from his fellow MPs. (see cartoons opposite from The Weekly Freeman) Parnell's reputation was greatly enhanced following the Commission's findings. An invitation to Gladstone's Hawarden residence indicated that a new Home Rule Bill was back on the agenda of any future Liberal administration. "But, of course, before that particular train could leave the station, Capt William O'Shea tore up the tracks with the divorce petition that finished Parnell's brilliant career and split his party. In the end, the Times got exactly what it wanted." Myles Dungan, Irish Times Sat Feb 13 2010 However, the allegations of long-standing adultery had already begun to create a huge public scandal. The Irish National League passed a resolution to confirm his leadership but the Catholic Church hierarchy in Ireland was shocked by Parnell's 'immorality' and feared that he would wreck the cause of Home Rule. Besides the issue of tolerating immorality, the bishops sought to keep control of Irish Catholic politics, and they no longer trusted Parnell as an ally. The chief Catholic leader, Archbishop Walsh of Dublin, came under heavy pressure from politicians, his fellow bishops, and Cardinal Manning; Walsh finally declared against Parnell. Larkin (1961) says, "For the first time in Irish history, the two dominant forces of Nationalism and Catholicism came to a parting of the ways. Parnell did not contest the divorce action at a hearing on 15 November, to ensure that it would be granted and that he could marry Mrs O'Shea, the allegations by Captain O'Shea's went unchallenged. (An affadavit prepared for the divorce hearing but not produced in court, were a number of counter-accusations from Mrs O'Shea against her husband including 'infidelities with a parlourmaid under their roof in 1875' and a Spanish mistress in 1877 & 1878 as well as an assault against Katharine herself in July 1881.) A divorce decree was granted on 17 November 1890, and Parnell's two surviving children were placed in O'Shea's custody. What had hitherto been rumour, innuendo and allegation now became proven fact in a court of law. Parnell was an adulterer. There was almost no greater sin in Victorian England and Parnell's case precipitated the greatest sex scandal of the era. Parnell's party rivals and hitherto respectable supporters expressed shock and outrage, as crucial backers, including Michael Davitt (qv), the catholic hierarchy, and the Gladstonian Liberals, were alienated. In addition to splitting the Irish party, O'Shea, who insisted that he had maintained contact with his family throughout, eventually won his decree nisi in November 1890 with custody of all the children under 16, including Parnell's daughters Katie and Clare (subsequently transferred back to Katharine). In England, one strong base of Liberal Party support was Nonconformist Protestantism, such as the Methodists; the 'nonconformist conscience' rebelled against having an adulterer play a major role in the Liberal Party. Gladstone in turn warned both Parnell and the IPP leadership that if Parnell retained control of the Irish party in Westminster, it would mean the loss of the next election, the end of their alliance, and also ultimately of Home Rule, as the fight for Irish self-government had been presented as a 'moral crusade'. The Irish Parliamentary Party held their annual leadership election on 25 November 1890, but Gladstone's threat was not conveyed to the members until after they had loyally re-elected their 'chief' in his office. When Gladstone published his warning in a letter the next day; angry IPP members demanded a new meeting, and this was called for 1 December. Parnell issued a manifesto on 29 November, saying a section of the party had lost its independence; he falsified Gladstone's terms for Home Rule and said they were inadequate. A total of 73 members were present for the fateful meeting in Committee Room 15 at Westminster. Leaders tried desperately to achieve a compromise in which Parnell would temporarily withdraw. Parnell refused. He vehemently insisted that the independence of the Irish party could not be compromised either by Gladstone or by the Catholic hierarchy. As chairman, he blocked any motion to remove him. 6 December – after five days of discussion, debate and argument on Parnell's leadership, 44 members of the Irish Parliamentary Party walked out of the meeting and withdrew from the Party, most going on to form the Irish National Federation led by John Dillon and supported by the Irish Catholic hierarchy. Parnell was left with only 28 supporters in the Irish National League under John Redmond, but all of his former close associates, Michael Davitt, John Dillon, William O'Brien and Timothy Healy deserted to join the anti-Parnellites. The bitterness of the split damaged the IPP and resonated well into the next century. Parnell fought back desperately, despite his failing health. On 10 December, he arrived in Dublin to a hero's welcome. He and his followers forcibly seized the offices of the party paper, United Irishman. A year before, his prestige had reached new heights, but the new crisis crippled this support, and most rural nationalists turned against him. In the December North Kilkenny by-election, he attracted Fenian "hillside men" to his side. This ambiguity shocked former adherents, who clashed physically with his supporters; his candidate lost by almost two to one. Deposed as leader, he fought a long and fierce campaign for reinstatement. He conducted a political tour of Ireland to re-establish popular support. In a North Sligo by-election, the defeat of his candidate by 2,493 votes to 3,261 was less resounding. The year 1890 closed with one political life fighting to survive a failing battle for Irish political rights, but the year also saw the birth of another, one who was to eclipse Parnell; the future revolutionary, Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Free State Army & Cabinet Minister - Michael Collins. |
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Journalist Stephen Collins suggested in 2013, that lost leaders such as Parnell are remembered with such fascination and admiration precisely because they “have not had to govern for long, if at all, and so don’t get sucked into the messy compromises that are the inevitable fate of long-serving politicians entrusted with the thankless task of government”
Historian A. J. P. Taylor wrote that Parnell ... "More than any other man he gave Ireland the sense of being an independent nation." FSL Lyons points up the dark side of the Irish leader, that the decade-long liaison with Mrs. O'Shea was a disaster waiting to happen, and Parnell had made no preparations for it. He waited so long because of money – there was an expectation that Mrs. O'Shea would receive a large inheritance from her elderly aunt who might have changed her will if she had known about the affair. In the aftermath of the divorce he fought violently to retain control in a hopeless cause. Thereby he ruined his health and wrecked his movement; it never fully recovered. The bottom line for Lyons, however, is positive: "He gave his people back their self respect. He did this ... by rallying an inert and submissive peasantry to believe that by organized and disciplined protest they could win a better life for themselves and their children. He did it further, and still more strikingly, by demonstrating ... that even a small Irish party could disrupt the business of the greatest legislature in the world and, by a combination of skill and tenacity, could deal on equal terms with – eventually, hold the balance between – the two major English parties." Lyons 1973, p. 616 Had Parnell lived and there had been no divorce trial, the later course of Irish-British relations could possibly have been so different and is one of the great 'What-Ifs?' of Irish history (see Daniel Mulhall's 2020 article in History Ireland here ) In reality, Parnell took Home Rule with him to the grave, from which it emerged, briefly, and to no avail, between 1912 and 1914. As the poet W.B Yeats’s wrote in Come Gather Round Me, Parnellites: He fought the might of England |
Denis Murphy and family continued living in the Caretakers Lodge on the Marina, Cork.
We meet Denis again in an interesting news snippet of a long forgotten incident published in the Cork Examiner on 10 November, 1899. This refers back to an incident at the Marina on 25 August 1899 which had it's hearing later that year at the Police Court in Cork on 9 November. Denis had noted a John Murphy (a hackney car driver working from Patrick Street, Cork) driving a horse and car with two men down the Marina Walk in contravention of the City bye-laws. When he attempted to stop the horse, the defendant John Murphy attempted to 'drive over witness. Were it not for the intervention of another man, witness would undoubtedly have been killed'. When Denis later attempted to locate the defendant in the city the following week, he was abused by John Murphy and followed onto a tramcar. When the case came to court, John Murphy provided a witness to state that Caretaker Murphy had injured his horse during the event in August which was admitted. The Resident Magistrate hearing the case was C.E.B.Mayne. (Mayne 1850-c1910, was a former Royal Irish Constabulary Inspector who had been based in Kinsale and Skibbereen prior to his appointment as an RM in 1882. Working mainly on the Police Court circuit between Cork and Waterford, Mayne had been seconded to Portadown for a period and on one occasion, donned the black cap on the accused in a murder case. Reputed to dislike both Nationalists and Unionists equally, Mayne was hardly missed when he retired in 1905 and moved to London. One of his children was Ethel Colburn Mayne (1865 – 1941) an Anglo-Irish novelist, short-story writer, biographer, literary critic, journalist and translator.) Back to the Police Court case... RM Mayne was unimpressed with the actions of both the witness and the defendant, he firstly found John Murphy guilty of striking the Caretaker 'in the execution of his duty on the Marina, and for this offence they fined him 5s and costs'. However, Resident Magistrate Mayne was not done just yet. Also unimpressed with how John Murphy halted the hackney, he then found Denis Murphy guilty of treating John Murphy's horse 'in a most barbarous manner, and for that he fined him 10s and costs'. (about £75/€86 plus costs in 2022 values) |
Twelve years later, in the 1911 Census record, we find Denis, declaring himself to be 89 (in fact he was aged 94) and his daughters Kate (35) and Margaret (30) living in the Caretaker's Lodge at the Marina. Kate was a fruit shopkeeper and Margaret, an assistant fruit shopkeeper. Both were single and would remain so for life.
Thomas Joseph Murphy (1867-1948) (better known to friends and family as TJ) had by this stage moved from the Marina and was leasing stalls 1 & 2 of the English Market selling eggs and poultry.
In time, TJ became so well known in Cork City, that he was nicknamed 'Turkey Murphy'. The English Market enterprise was successful and he later opened two further stores - a Butter & Provisions shop at 39 Georges Street (now Oliver Plunkett street) and later 111 Oliver Plunkett Street. |
Summer of 1889 or 1899, TJ is pictured here (#6) with extended family on the occasion of his engagement to Margaret Geany from Glanmire (#5). Margaret had emigrated to the United States and had trained as a nurse at the Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, from which she graduated in 1898. Both TJ & Margaret knew each other prior to her emigration & family lore has it that when news of an impending engagement between Ms Geany and a New York doctor reached Thomas Joseph, he immediately booked passage to the city and on arrival asked Margaret to marry him. Impressed, she agreed, they returned to Ireland and were wed in 1901.
Summer of 1889 or 1899, TJ is pictured here (#6) with extended family on the occasion of his engagement to Margaret Geany from Glanmire (#5). Margaret had emigrated to the United States and had trained as a nurse at the Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, from which she graduated in 1898. Both TJ & Margaret knew each other prior to her emigration & family lore has it that when news of an impending engagement between Ms Geany and a New York doctor reached Thomas Joseph, he immediately booked passage to the city and on arrival asked Margaret to marry him. Impressed, she agreed, they returned to Ireland and were wed in 1901.
Murphy Family (Knockanemore, Ovens, Co. Cork) and Lynch family group - T.J.Murphy & Margaret Geany Engagement Party - summer 1899. Location: Wellesley Terrace, Cork
1: Unknown child
2: Unknown
3: Unknown. Possibly either Kate or Margaret Murphy - daughters of Denis Murphy.
4: Daniel Lynch, Granig. Reputed to be quite camera shy, so it's a rare first known photograph. Son of Margaret Lynch (nee Murphy) #17
5: Margaret Geany (1870-1958) engaged to be married to Thomas J Murphy.
6: Thomas J Murphy (1867-1948)
7: Mary 'Moll' Lynch, Granig. (1881-1957) Daughter of Margaret Lynch (nee Murphy) #17
8: Unknown (also appears #3 in Lynch 1902 photo)
9: Michael Francis Lynch, Granig. (1890-1956) Youngest son of Margaret Lynch (nee Murphy) #17 & this author's paternal grandfather.
10: Unknown - Possibly Hannah Murphy
11: Possibly Denis Lynch (1886-1973) son of Margaret Lynch (nee Murphy) #17
12: Unknown. Possibly either Maggie Murphy or Kate C Murphy (1865-1913)
13: Timothy 'Tim' Lynch, Granig. (1883-1958) son of Margaret Lynch (nee Murphy) #17
14: Possibly Julia Murphy - aged c.16?
15: General consensus is that this is the Murphy family patriarch - Denis Murphy (1817-1913)
16: Unknown. Possibly either Kate or Margaret Murphy - daughters of Denis Murphy.
17: Margaret Lynch nee Murphy, Granig (1847-1915) - this author's great-grandmother. Niece of Denis Murphy.
18: Unknown child
19: Person moved during film exposure or print has been damaged over time… and could be Julia Murphy (1818-?) or Joanna Murphy (1835--1921)?
20: Julia Ahern (nee Murphy) (1842-1920)
Finally, the vacant chair: Possibly occupied by the photographer who may have been Julia Ahern's husband, Jeremiah.
1: Unknown child
2: Unknown
3: Unknown. Possibly either Kate or Margaret Murphy - daughters of Denis Murphy.
4: Daniel Lynch, Granig. Reputed to be quite camera shy, so it's a rare first known photograph. Son of Margaret Lynch (nee Murphy) #17
5: Margaret Geany (1870-1958) engaged to be married to Thomas J Murphy.
6: Thomas J Murphy (1867-1948)
7: Mary 'Moll' Lynch, Granig. (1881-1957) Daughter of Margaret Lynch (nee Murphy) #17
8: Unknown (also appears #3 in Lynch 1902 photo)
9: Michael Francis Lynch, Granig. (1890-1956) Youngest son of Margaret Lynch (nee Murphy) #17 & this author's paternal grandfather.
10: Unknown - Possibly Hannah Murphy
11: Possibly Denis Lynch (1886-1973) son of Margaret Lynch (nee Murphy) #17
12: Unknown. Possibly either Maggie Murphy or Kate C Murphy (1865-1913)
13: Timothy 'Tim' Lynch, Granig. (1883-1958) son of Margaret Lynch (nee Murphy) #17
14: Possibly Julia Murphy - aged c.16?
15: General consensus is that this is the Murphy family patriarch - Denis Murphy (1817-1913)
16: Unknown. Possibly either Kate or Margaret Murphy - daughters of Denis Murphy.
17: Margaret Lynch nee Murphy, Granig (1847-1915) - this author's great-grandmother. Niece of Denis Murphy.
18: Unknown child
19: Person moved during film exposure or print has been damaged over time… and could be Julia Murphy (1818-?) or Joanna Murphy (1835--1921)?
20: Julia Ahern (nee Murphy) (1842-1920)
Finally, the vacant chair: Possibly occupied by the photographer who may have been Julia Ahern's husband, Jeremiah.
TJ and Margaret moved to 6 Audley Place, Cork where their three daughters were born: Natalie (1903-1944), Mary 'May' (1904-1949) and Sheila (1904-1987). In 1907 they bought 4 Belgrave Place, Cork, later moving to Herbert park (off Gardiners Hill) and in 1921 bought Silverspring House in Tivoli (since demolished). They rented 4 Belgrave Place to Mary & Annie McSwiney, sisters of Terence McSwiney, where they opened St Ita's School.
Kate Murphy died on July 23, 1913 and was interred in Kilcrea Friary, near Ovens, Co. Cork. Her father, Denis died later the same year on 24 November, 1913 and was also interred in Kilcrea Friary. After thirty years service as caretaker of the Marina walk, he received the briefest of mentions at the next City Hall meeting on 11 December. TJ was appointed a Peace Commissioner in 1914, later appointed to the Board of the Cork Harbour Commissioners on which he served for many years, representing the Harbour Board at the funeral mass of Terence McSwiney following his death on hunger-strike, in London, October 1920. TJ continued the business in 111 Oliver Plunkett Street until his death in June 1948. He is buried in the Murphy family grave in Kilcrea Friary near Ovens, Co. Cork. Margaret died in December 1958 and is buried in Ballyluchra Cemetery, Glanmire with their three daughters. |
Scoil Ita Camogie team - 1920 including Natalie, May & Sheila Murphy.
Click on each image to open video & click full screen when started.
Below (L-R): Fergal Keane's 'The Story of Ireland' (BBC/RTE 2011); 'Ireland - a Television History' Robert Kees (1980); Trinity College Dublin 'Ireland in Rebellion 1782-1916 - Parnell by Professor Patrick Geoghegan, Department of History, TCD. Scannal series from RTE television (parts 1-3)
Below (L-R): Fergal Keane's 'The Story of Ireland' (BBC/RTE 2011); 'Ireland - a Television History' Robert Kees (1980); Trinity College Dublin 'Ireland in Rebellion 1782-1916 - Parnell by Professor Patrick Geoghegan, Department of History, TCD. Scannal series from RTE television (parts 1-3)
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Parnell's story from RTÉ's Scannal series
- Bew, Paul (1978) Land and the national question in Ireland 1858-82 (Dublin 1978).
- Bew, Paul (1987) Conflict and conciliation in Ireland 1890-1910: Parnellities and radical agrarians (Oxford, 1987).
- Bew, Paul (2011) Enigma - A New Life of Charles Stewart Parnell. Gill & Macmillan.
- Blanck, Maggie. Evictions in Ireland - http://www.maggieblanck.com/Mayopages/Eviction.html
- Boyce, David George (1990). Nineteenth-century Ireland: The search for stability. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan. ISBN 0-7171-1620-4. OCLC 23061804.
- Clark, Samuel (1978). "The Importance of Agrarian Classes: Agrarian Class Structure and Collective Action in Nineteenth-Century Ireland". British Journal of Sociology. 29 (1): 22–40. doi:10.2307/589217. JSTOR 589217.
- Dangerfield, George. 'The Damnable Question - a study in Anglo-Irish relations'. Constable, London. 1977. p18
- Dungan, Myles. 'The Captain and the Fenians'. History Ireland. Sept 2009. https://www.historyireland.com/the-captain-and-the-fenians-william-henry-oshea-and-the-irb
- Guinnane, Timothy W., and Ronald I. Miller (1977). "The limits to land reform: the Land Acts in Ireland, 1870–1909." Economic Development and Cultural Change 45.3 (1997)
- Guinnane, Timothy W., and Ronald I. Miller (1996). Bonds without Bondsmen: Tenant-Right in Nineteenth-Century Ireland. Source: The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 56, No. 1 (Mar., 1996), pp. 113-142
- Hickey, D. J. & Doherty, J. E., A new Dictionary of Irish History from 1800, Gill & MacMillan (2003) ISBN 0-7171-2520-3
- Murphy, M. (1979). Fenianism, Parnellism and the Cork Trades, 1860-1900. Saothar, 5, 27–38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23195175
- O'Brien, Richard Barry (1898). "Life of Charles Stewart Parnell." Harper & Brothers, New York
- O’Neill, T. P. (1955). The Irish Land Question, 1830-1850. Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 44(175), 325–336. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30098665
- Parnell, Charles Stewart. (1180) The Irish Land Question. The North American Review , Apr., 1880, Vol. 130, No. 281 (Apr., 1880), pp. 388- 406 Published by: University of Northern Iowa. Link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25100849.pdf
- Quinn, John F. (2015). "Jilted—Parnell and the American Heiress". History Ireland. Wordwell. (1): 26–28.
- Reilly, Ciaran. The Irish Land Agent, 1830-60: The case of King's County. 2014. Four Courts Press, Dublin.
- Winstanley, M. J. (1984). Ireland and the Land Question 1800-1922. London: Methuen. ISBN 0416374204.
Thanks to Kieran McCarthy for various news clippings and history of The Marina, Cork, History Ireland and Wikipedia for context and information links and of course, a special thanks to Colm O'Sullivan for sharing the Parnell letter, photographs, documents and ancestral details. August 2022.
Thanks too to you reader for getting this far... perhaps you may have something to add? Your constructive thoughts, comments and observations welcome. Contact the site via email icon link on upper right of each webpage or here.
Last updated: 18.04.2023
Word count 28,093
Last updated: 18.04.2023
Word count 28,093