IRISH EVICTIONS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2251, 12 October 1889, Page 2

IRISH EVICTIONS.

It is to be regretted that so small a proportion of the public of Ashbuvton embraced the opportunity afforded by the eloquent lectures of Mr Buick to make themselves acquainted with the condition of things m Ireland — of which, indeed, if the pictures given m Irish newspapers are anything like the truth, very few pennons out of that unhappy country are able to form an adequate conception. For example we have before us a series of clippings which, put together, tell a story the perusal of which is enough to rouse the indignation of every honest and just man. Several of these relate to what is going on upon the estate of the Marquis of Clanriordo, whose conduct towards his tenants even the " Times " has denounced, describing it "as marked by almost incredible baseness/ and characterising him " as a public nuisance and a public danger." Ihe Marquis, it is said, " has sworn to leave his estate bare of human beings," and is employing as his agent a man named Tener, described by an Irish journal as " a broken down spendthrift, hunted by his creditors," whom "chance threw m the way of his noble (!) employer." Here are some incidents of the campaign which is being carried on " with crowbar and hatchet," the " forces including forty policemen, under the command of Dißtrict-Inßpector Wade, a company of forty Scotch Fusiliers, under the command ot Lieutenant Lermotte, and the blackguard brigade of the crowbar, under the congenial personal direction of the agent, Mr Tener : " — « The wratched peasant Diamond was at his morning meal of potatoes, with his wife and little family, when the invading army arrived unexpectedly at his cabin door, and forthwith the table was upturned (the law being m a hurry), the unfortunate man, with his wife, and children, and his poor Bticka of furniture, were all bundled out together on the road. Yet this was one of the least painful scenes m the horrible business. At the house of Michael Mitchell the tenant's wile's mother was lying m a dying condition when the eviction was commenced. Father Pelly and Father Corcoran, who knew the poor woman's condition, vainly endeavoured to make a passage through the ring of the brutal Emergency men. Meanwhile the work of eviction went gaily on. The emergency lambs had a j splendid time of it. They attacked two young sons of the tenant, boys respec tively of thirteen and fifteen years of age, so fiercely with their hammers that one of the lads, with his head cut and bruised, and his hand disabled with the blows of the hammer, to escape from his savage assailants, leaped through a two-etorey wiudow. At length the clergy-* men succeeded m making their protest heard. Mr Byrne would be no party to dragging the dying woman from her bed. The eviction was stopped, and the emergency wolves retired growling from their prey. The chief recreation of these playful brutes at an eviction is smashing the tenant's furniture with hammer and crowbar, and on one of them being requested by the Key Father Pelly to remove the furniture gently he replied, { I will remove you by the back of the neck,' and if Mr Byrno had not intervened would have put his threat into execution. 1 ' Nor ia it only on the Glanricarde estates that this sort of thing js going on, for this is what we read as to what has been dune m the name of the law at the humble home of one widow O'Neill, on the estate of Lord Inchiquin, at Ballygreen, near Newmarket on-Fergus : — " The poor widow was unable to pay the rent his lordship demanded, and the law proceeded to vindicate itself by bailiffs, crowbar, and battering-ram. The widow was lying m bed recovering from a fever at the time of this kindly visitation, and th,e playful emergency lambs amqsecl themselves by throwing out her furniture and smashing it outside. A doctor's certificate interposed before the poor woman was herself dragged out of her bed. But the work was practically accomplished. The wretched woman had a relapße. She raved incessantly of the horrors of eviction, and died within a month. The law will have no further trouble m vindicating itself on her." And here is yet another equally painful story:" — '»A frightful Bcene was witnessed m the course of an eviction at a place called Oulleens, m the county Mayo, last week. A poor widow, named Keaveney, with three children, was thrown, out ot her miserable hovel during a terrible downpour of rain. When the bailiffs broke into her house she fell on the floor m a fit, and, while unconscious, was carried out and laid on a heap of chaff called a bed. All this time the rain was pouring heavily, and both the wretched mother and her three poor babes, who were crying distractedly, w«re drenched to the skin. The grabber, a man called Convey had purchased the farm from Colonel Knox, the landlord, while the poor widow was negotiating with another person for the transference of the farm on terms favorable to herself. His farm adjoined that ol his victim. All the time the shocking scene was being enacted he looked on, skulking behind the boundary hedge, waiting to get possession. Wfeen. Mrs Keaveney recovered from her Bwoon she threw herself upon her knees on the hard, wet road , and, with the vehemence of despair, repeatedly invoked the vengeance of heaven on the man who had deprived her and her orphans of their home. The scene was horribly startling and affecting, and made a ' powerful impression even on the callous evicting party." Well may the journal from which the above extracts are taken remark "it is hard to divest our minds of the belief that we aro reading of a reprisal war on a hordo of savage natives m some South Pacific island rather than the dignified administration of the law amongst her Majesty's peaceful and well- moaning subjects of the United Kingdom," Surely it is high time that a remedy were found for so shameful a slate of things, and small wonder indeed is it that Irishmen are agitating for Home rule. Clearly they look m vain for a remedy from a Government which aids and abets such cruelties, and even confers honors upon such minions of oppression as the man j Tener abovo referred to, who, inoredible i aB it may appear has, it is stated, been *' created a Justice of the Peace for the County of Galway, and administers justice amongst the people he is paid to exterminate."