“That’s what enrages the landlords,” my guide says to me; “it is to see tenants come in this style to the Tralee races, cheerfully lose twenty guineas upon a horse, then, when the time for paying the rent arrives, coolly ask for a 40 per cent. reduction on their half-year’s rent....”
“... And in fact it must be enough to make a saint swear!...” he adds philosophically. “But after all, the landlords might be content with the 60 per cent. they get ... I am sure they get it cheap enough ... they may think themselves lucky to have even that much, as the interest of confiscated land!...”
That notion of the land being held by its actual detentors through confiscation, may be unfounded in some cases, or even in the majority of cases, but none the less one finds it at the bottom of all Irish syllogisms. And in such cases the real value of the premiss is of little importance; what matters only is the conclusion drawn from it.
A few middling and small farmers.
Maurice Macnamara, Shinnagh: rent, £48 a year; seventeen cows, eight pigs, two horses and one donkey; grass fields, oats, and potatoes; four children, of which one is over twenty years of age. Was able to pay his rent, but was forbidden to do so by the other tenants on the estate, and was in consequence seized by order of the landlord. His neighbours offered to help him to resist the execution. He begged to be left alone, and the moment of the sale having come, he personally bought all his cattle up to the sum due. Nett result of the operation: £11 to pay, over and above the six months’ rent. Personal opinion of Maurice Macnamara: it is better to pay £11 than to get a bullet through your head.
John McCarthy, Gwingullier: £16 annual rent, due in May and November; two cows, one horse; oats and potatoes; nine children, the eldest seventeen. Has paid nothing to his landlord since 1883; owes actually £48 to him, and as much to divers tradespeople or usurers. Does not know how he shall get out of it.
Patrick Murphy, Colyherbeer, barony Trughanarkny; was evicted in November from his holding of £28; owed eighteen months’ rent. Received from his Landlord the offer of being reinstated in the farm on payment of half the sum due, on condition that he would let his crops be sold. Declined the offer, and is perfectly satisfied to receive from the League relief to the amount of £2 a-week. Never saw himself so well off before.
Margaret Callaghan, a widow, close by the town of Kenmare: £8 16s. 4d. rent; one pig, six hens; three small children; four acres of potatoes, three acres waste. Has paid nothing for the last four years. Owes about £20 to various tradespeople. Is not harshly pressed by her landlord, and can practically be considered as owning her bit of ground. Will die of hunger, with her children, the first year the harvest is bad.