Like every one else, he had serious difficulties with his tenants, who would neither pay their rents nor leave their farms. He had been shot at several times, but had never been hit. One day he was riding on the Nenagh road in full daylight, when, at the same moment, he heard two balls whistle past his ears. The would-be murderers were two men who had fired from a neighbouring field, and who ran away seeing that they had missed their aim. Mr. Carden jumped his horse over the wall and pursued them. He stunned the first with a blow from his loaded horse-whip, then throwing himself upon the second, he managed to knock him down with blows of his fists. He bound them together with his stirrup-leathers, and triumphantly conveyed them to Nenagh prison. Wonderful to relate, the jury, suddenly carried away by his courage, consented to find them guilty, and they were hanged!
Mr. Carden had another rather droll adventure with his tenants. One day, during the Fenian insurrection, he was warned that the inhabitants of the neighbouring village, taking the Socialist theories in earnest, had divided his park between them, and intended solemnly coming to take possession on the following Monday. Mr. Carden, assisted by his men-servants, immediately carried an old cannon, worked on a pivot, that he possessed, to an upper room. On the day named the tenants arrived with horses and carts, and commenced, in presence of an immense crowd, to dig up the lawn. At this moment they heard a window open, and they saw Mr. Carden ostentatiously leading his cannon up to the mouth with packets of grape-shot. He then turned round, drew out his watch, and informed the spectators that he gave them ten minutes to get away in. They did not require five, and no one has since dreamt of digging up Mr. Carden’s lawn.
Sir Croker Barrington was away, and this unfortunately prevented us from seeing the interior of the castle, but we had a short walk through a small narrow copse that ran along the hill, on the top of which the castle was built, and which is really charming. The dampness of the country renders the vegetation of the underwood deliciously fresh, and of incomparable luxuriance by the side of anything we have at home. And I must add that Irish poachers are less destructive than ours. They kill the large game, but apparently disdain the thrushes, blackbirds, and wood-pigeons, for numbers of them flew up, literally from under our feet.
The road that has brought us back from Sir Croker Barrington’s to Ballinacourty passes through Lord Cloncurry’s estate. I much wished to visit this property, for it has been frequently mentioned for some time past. It is, in fact, the theatre where very extraordinary events have taken, and are still taking place, showing plainly the state of disorganisation which now prevails in Ireland.
Lord Cloncurry is a very rich man, who usually inhabits another estate in the vicinity of Dublin. His property in county Limerick is managed by an agent.
The tenants paid their rent neither better nor worse than their neighbours, when after Easter, 1884, they all went to the agent together. They carried their money in their hands. The agent, believing that they had come to pay him, began complimenting them on punctuality to which he was unaccustomed, when the priest, who was with them, stepped forward, and, speaking in the name of his parishioners, told him that the tenants were ready to pay, provided that the rents were at once reduced ten per cent. If this reduction, which was to affect not only the quarters now due, but also those that were in arrears, were not accepted, nothing more would be paid.
The agent replied that he had not the requisite authority to accept these propositions, which to him seemed very unjust. The land was let in a very unequal way, for as the rents had not been raised for a long time the relative value of the land was much changed, so that whilst some paid a full price, others paid much too little. If they wished the arrangements re-made on a new basis it would not be just for the same reduction to be made for them all. The tenants would not listen, and they all left him without paying a penny.
The following day they assembled at a meeting, the priest still acting as president. It was agreed that five delegates should go to Dublin to see Lord Cloncurry and to lay the matter before him.
He did not receive the embassy very graciously, but replied to them in the same words as the agent had done. He did not refuse them all a reduction, but he would not admit that a reduction should be the same for all; lastly, and above all, he would not allow them to impose upon him, by threats, terms that he thought were undesirable. If the tenants would not pay, he would show himself lenient towards arrears, but he would get rid of them all, even if he cultivated the land himself.