Songs of Agrarian Strife

Song,$ of inStrife ongs of strife are important small farmer. During the same period, sociological and historical many farm labourers, herdsmen, documents. Most of them emergency men (see Appendix 1) an$ were written close to the small holders were attacked, seriously event which they describe. the main grievances of tenant farmers, in wounded, permanently maimed and killed, Indeed, some contain information not to those parts of the country where the but no songs were written about most of be found in the official records or Ulster Custom (see Appendix I) did not these. Songs tended to be written about newspapers of the time. Although many of operate, were the non-recognition of any the more dramatic cases, ones that these ballads, which were essentially property right of an occupying tenant, and captured and fired the public imagination journalistic by nature, were factually the situation where a tenant had no right and were the subjects of gossip, talk and accurate, it is also important to remember to compensation for any improvements controversy. Of the eleven songs that they reflected the feelings not only of that he carried out to his holding. The examined here, four are from Kerry, three the ballad-maker but of sizeable sections Land Act of 1870, sometimes known as from Tipperary, and one each from of the ordinary people. It was the the Gladstone Act - the product of Limerick, Clare, Galway and Donegal. character of these songs to reflect popular considerable agrarian agitation and Cases where miscarriages of justice had thinking and feeling. If the message was violence - sought to address these two occurred were often the subjects of songs unpopular people would not want to buy grievances, even if in a weak, diluted form. and five of our collection belong to this the ballad or sing it. So the songs give us The Act laid down that tenants who category. Again, five out of the eleven are the collective en~otionsof the people on carried out improvements should be execution songs. The Irish execution song the actual events outlined in the street recompensed by the landlord for such is thought to derive from the English ballads. Consequently the role of the improvements and acknowledged that the broadside of that type, and, like its English ballad maker in acting as a mirror of tenant had a property righ of occupancy. It counterpart, caters for the human appetite popular opinion could subvert his role as also set out a limited number of fines as a for the gruesome and the macabre. Such journalist and make him distort the facts deterrent to the landlord carrying out Irish songs are often framed in the first of the situation in order, as we shall see evictions. For the purposes of this article, person and entitled A Lamentation. There later, to make his products attractive to his the 1870 Act can be seen as the are two so-titled in our selection, The purchasers. culmination of the first period of agrarian Lanzentation of James Walsh and The In relation to this type of street unrest.' The second period up to 1895 was Lamentation of the two Cormacks. literature, it should also be borne in mind even more violent and disturbed, Execution songs like these nearly always that although one could be prosecuted for especially in the 1880s when the Land contain an admonitory verse or verses, the singing of seditious songs from League and its oficially unacknowledged along with verses or lines of repentance, Elizabethan times, until the foundation of terrorist cutting edge, the Moonlighters, affirmation in the church and its beliefs, the Land League in 1879, ballad-singing were waging the final bloody phase for the and of hope in divine mercy. was one of the few non-violent forms of land of Ireland.2 Six of our songs and protest available to the peasantry on stories date from this period and it is not questions affecting them. without significance that five of these Making and singing such songs was relate to murders that took place in also a way of indicating support from Munster, or that four of them come from Historians have said that agricultural those who themselves would not resort to Kerry, or that all four of these are from the labourers were not very supportive of, or acts of violence. It is worth remembering Castleisland area of CO Kerry, the murder interested in, the Land Leag~e.~This, too that poor, illiterate or semi-illiterate capital of Ireland, "blood-stained however, does not seem to apply to its people were often great believers in the Castleisland" as Peter O'Brien, Peter the terrorist wing, the Moonlighters, power of words - songs, writings and Packer, later Lord O'Brien of Kilfenora, specifically the Moonlighters of the speeches - to change the world, and the called it.3 In 1882, at the trials of Poff and Castleisland area, the acknowledged agrarian revolution in 19th century Ireland Barrett, accused of one of the murders in centre of the struggle. Evidence from here wrought considerable social and economic the Castleisland area, O'Brien said if a suggests that farm labourers were very changes for the tenant farmer class, if not murder takes place in Clare the killer involved in M~onlighting.~Of the agrarian for the labourers. Part one of this article comes across the Broadford hills. if one murders considered here most were outlines the historical context of the takes place in Limerick he comes from carried out by labourers or small tenant murders which inspired the ballad- New Pallas, and if a murder takes place in farmers. The first of these concerns the makers, while part two examines the Kerry the murderer always comes from shooting of the land agent, John Ellis, at songs themselves. Some of the songs are Castleisland.4 This period of violence and Killahara, near Loughmore, Co. Tipperary, represented in full in the text with a continuous agitation wound down as he returned from the railway station in commentary. The remainder are gradually in the first half of the 1890s and Templemore on a dark October night in contained in Appendix 111. its termination can be dated to the 1857. Two farm workers, William and Wyndham Act of 1903 under which Daniel Cormack, were put on trial, 300,000 holdings were p~rchased.~ convicted and hanged for the murder in The songs and stories studied here do May 1858. They protested their innocence The eleven songs and stories analysed not present us with anything like a to the end and local lore has it that the here relate to land agitation and span the comprehensive picture of the land murder was committed by an aggrieved period 1857 to 1895. This was a time of agitation during this period, for in one way tenant named William Gleeson, who considerable agrarian unrest when the or another all of the songs are about subsequently emigrated to the United tenant farmers were challenging the remarkable cases. The victims include an States and lived out his life in New York. system of land holding. They sought to Earl, a young landlord, two substantial The Cormacks were said to have introduce changes into the existing farmers, three land agents, a descendant murdered Ellis because he seduced their system of land tenure to increase their of one of the great planter families of younger sister, Kitty. own rights and powers and diminish those Kerry, a policeman, a herdsman and an The assassination of Lord Leitrim in of the landlord. From 1857 to 1870 two of emergency man and a poverty ridden April of 1878 and the killing of his young secretary, John Makim, and the car driver, when Michael Hayes, a tenant farmer and In October 1882 another daylight Charles Buchanan, on the Milford road bailiff in his sixties, discharged a pistol murder was carried out in the Castleisland close to Mulroy Bay, was the work of into John Waller Braddell, the agent of area. This was at Dromoulton, near the three men, Micheal Rua McElwee, a small Colonel Hare's estate on which Hayes was village of Scartaglen, where a well-to-do holder, and two tailors, Hugh Shiels and a bailiff and tenant. Colonel Hare and farmer, Thomas Brown, was shot dead by Michael Heraghty. They were members of Braddell had decided to rid the estate of two men while working in a hay-field a secret society, probably some kind of Hayes and his family, whose violence and about four o'clock in the afternoon. Two Ribbon society, in the Fanad peninsula. lawlessness had become a nuisance to men, James Barrett and Sylvester Poff, Heraghty was traced to the crime through them, although in earlier times they had were subsequently tried, convicted and the smashed stock of a gun found at the encouraged and prompted Michael Hayes hanged for this murder in Tralee in scene. He was charged and was awaiting into acts of ruthlessness. Hayes was seen January 1883. It was always believed that trial when he died of typhoid fever in as one of the ordinary people and had they were innocent of the crime aqin a Lifford gaol. many relatives around Doon and show of sympathy and solidarity, a large The murder of Francis Fitzgerald near Cappawhite, but he had become in the sum of money was raised throughout the Kilmallock in May of 1862 in the presence words of one commentator "a vile and county Kerry by public subscription for of his wife was the work of Thomas hard-headed instrument" of the landlord.12 the widow and children of Sylvester Poff.

Load more