The Parteen Eviction
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THE PARTEEN EVICTION henever there is talk of the Land War in Clare, one regularly hears mention of the evictions at Bodyke, Kildysart and Miltown Malbay. Little is heard of a brutal eviction in south-east Clare, where a farmer, his wife and their ten children were savagely forced out of their home in late September, 1887. Michael Lane of Firhill, Parteen, was a tenant on the 600 acre estate of Colonel Thomas J. McAdam of Blackwater. He and his wife, Joanna, had lived on their 321h acres farm for 14 years. Michael had inherited the farm from his father, who had toiled there for over 30 years. The valuation was £38.10.0. Initially, the rent was £40 a year, rising to £50, and eventually to the exorbitant rate of £102 a year. The bad economic times of the 1870s and early 1880s led many farmers to look A watercolour of Parteen by E. Hawker. for a reduction in their rents. The requests of the luckier ones were acceded has been no labourer's cottage built in to by the more benevolent landlords such this division of the Limerick Union, as Vandeleur of Ralahine, Blood of and that we appeal to the guardians to Brackhill, Westropp of Tulla and some at once proceed to erect suitable others. Manv of the tenants had to have parish priest of Parteen. Interestingly dwellings for the too long oppressed their requests processed through the enough, a strong presence of police was labourers. newly formed Land Courts, which were reported; seemingly, this was for the That we desire to make an emphatic empowered to reduce rents if they saw protection of a government notetaker, protest against the mockery of trial by fit to do so. In 1882, Michael Lane 'whom they so well enclosed in their jury which occurred during the recent applied to the court for a reduction, and midst that few, if any, of the people trials of Sligo and we trust that the his annual rent was reduced from £102 to observed his presence or, if they did, they priests and people of Ireland will take £80. took no notice whatever of him'. vigorous measures to prevent a For many tenant farmers the At the outset a number of resolutions repetition of the gross insults offered reduction in judicial rents was enough to were proposed by P.M. Lane and to the Catholic jurymen of Ireland by see them through their difficulties, but seconded by M.Corry: the action of the Crown lawyers. times were never so bad. The thin wind of economic depression continued to cut, That we renew our pledges of entire Needless to say, the resolutions were and agricultural prices fell throughout trust in Mr. Parnell and the Irish passed unanimously. the 1880s. But it was when the slump hit Parliamentary Party and that we bind Next to the platform was R.J. Cox, the dry cattle industry in 1886-87 that the ourselves to give a constant and M.P. for east Clare, who was a vocal crunch really came for many farmers, unfailing support to the programme of champion of tenants and their rights. He and it was then, too, that their unecon- the Irish National League until the got the crowd going fairly quickly with omic smallholdings proved unviable. achievement of the complete realis- some rousing remarks about landlords Michael Lane was representative of ation of our hopes in the establish- and their style. He outlined the circum- his class. He was in deep financial ment o our national independence. stances surrounding Michael Lane's case, trouble. In 1886, he could cobble together That fwe trust that the landlords of and then addressed Col. McAdam 'in the only £40 of his £80 rent, and so the this district will follow the example name of the people of Clare and Limerick landlord moved in. In the earlybdays of set them in many parts of Ireland by until Michael Lane was restored to his January, 1887, his farm was put up for granting reductions in rents farm it would remain idle - a monument sale at the Courthouse, Ennis. It was proportionate to the admitted fall in to the tyranny of landlordism (cheers). 'bought in' for Col. McAdam by a clerk the value of all agricultural produce. The man that would, however, injure the named Lyons for £40! That we pledge ourselves to support hair of the head of Col. McAdams or The local response was swift and by every lawful means within our Horsford, or Delmege (other landlords), angry. Within a few days of the sale, the power Mr. Michael Lane in his or any emergency caretaker in the farm Parteen Branch of the Irish National struggle with his landlord until such would do a greater injury to the National Land League held a meeting at time as he shall have wrung from him cause and the case of Michael Lane than Ardnacrusha (now Parteen village) to a fair and reasonable settlement. the emergency man who would go into denounce the landlord and to condemn That we call upon all those who are the farm.' his action. Two bands entertained not alreadu enrolled to join the ranks The Land League had a very clear contingents of the League from Limerick, of the Iris$ National ~e&ue,and policy when a farmer was evicted from Sixmilebridge, Newmarket and else- take a manly and honourable part in -- his land. Nobody was to touch the land, where. The Clare Examiner estimated the Ireland 'S struggle for independence. and if anyone did so, he was boycotted. attendance to b&about 5,000. The That we again call public attention to Emergency men, as they were known, meeting was headed by F. Luke Gleeson, the fact that up to the present there who operated the farm for the landlord The Lax Weir, with Parteen in the background. got a hard time generally. John Dillon's The other M.P. for County Limerick, evicting brigade were surprised by the words were followed assiduously: 'If any John Finucane, then addressed the appearance of the place when they man takes up that land, let no man speak meeting and berated the local branch of arrived, as the windows had been to him or have any business transactions the League for having allowed matters to removed and the openings in the wall with him'. deteriorate to the point where McAdam filled by large stones. It soon became Cox concluded his speech by calling could actually sell Lane's farm. He was clear that there was going to be nothing on all present to support the tenant followed by a number of speakers of easy about this eviction. farmers: 'It was no use meeting there and lesser importance and then Fr. Gleeson Lane, his wife and his brother-in-law, shouting God Save Ireland, and sending closed the meeting. Thomas O'Grady, left it until the last denounciations of landlordism up to the In spite of the rhetoric of the National minute before they went back into the high heavens, if they left the field and League leaders and the outrages house and slammed the door in the face went to their houses without doing some committed by its members, evictions of the sheriff and his bailiffs. real genuine work; and the work they became a common feature throughout A number of police, armed with rifles, wereBsked to do was to assist them and the county in the spring and summer of were ordered to approach the house and give them support by going and joining 1887. Michael Lane's turn came in mid- to stand within a few yards of the door to the National League'. autumn. guard the sheriff and his bailiffs. William Abraham, M.P. for Limerick 'An eviction is a sentence of death', Possession was demanded by Capt. County, echoed Cox's sentiments when Gladstone had said, and, as if the Croker, the sheriff, but a shout of he addressed the gathering, but applied emphasise the point, the chapel bell defiance was the only answer he got. the knife to the landlord much more tolled funeral-like on the morning of 27 Once the preliminaries were over, the severely: September. Ominously, bodies of police police were ordered in. Baton-men first and military began to arrive in what is cleared onlookers, including Lane's ten The landlord sought for half a year's rent now the vicinity of the Tail Race Bar and young children, from the hedge at the to confiscate the improvements of half a what was then Parteen. First to arrive at opposite side of the road. No opposition ' century -for £40 to seize £400. It was 10 o'clock were the Royal Irish Constab- was offered to the police, even though proof of the honesty of the motives which ulary, under the command of County one or two constables were over-robust activated them, that Col. McAdam with Inspector Heard, District Inspectors while carrying out this order. The bailiffs his own misdeeds and his ancestors' Siddal of Tda, Keyser of Sixmilebridge then began to apply their hatchets on the treachery known all over the country - and O'Reilly of Abbeyfeale. Then, about wall near the door but had only could walk over the land freely and 80 men of the Second Leinster Regiment displaced some mortar when one of them unmolested by the people whose liberty marched up, fully accoutred and with used a crowbar to put the door flying in. his ancestor had betrayed and whose baynots fixed, and took a position close At this point, police were ordered to rights he himself had trampled upon; but to the police.