'COLONEL CROSBIE AND GENTLEMEN OF THE GRAND JURY OF KERRY—I requested your permission to defer any observations I was about to make to you, in order that I might have an opportunity of examining certain returns which had been made to me containing materials for forming a judgment upon the state of things in this county of which I was put in possession upon my arrival, and I was desirous of being afforded an opportunity of examining these materials to try if I could discern whether, in the considerable lapse of time that has happened since the last Assizes, I could see any reason to conclude that an improvement had taken place in the state of things that has now so long existed in the County of Kerry, and other counties in the south of Ireland, to try if I could discern whether lapse of time itself, the weariness of that state of things, if the law and influences that lead persons to avoid violations of the law, or to follow the pursuits of industry, had led in the end to any favourable change in the state of things; but I grieve to say that it is not in my power, unfortunately, to announce that any change has taken place. On the contrary, all the means of information that I possess lead to the unhappy conclusion that there is no improvement, but that, on the contrary, there exists, even at this moment, a most extraordinary state of things—a state of things of an unprecedented description—nothing short, in fact, of a state of open war with all forms of authority, and even, I may say without exaggeration, with the necessary institutions of civilised life.
'These returns present a picture of the County Kerry such as can hardly be found in any country that has passed the confines of natural society and entered upon the duties and relations, and acknowledged the obligations, of civilised life. The law is defeated—perhaps I should rather say, has ceased to exist! Houses are attacked by night and day, even the midnight terror yielding to the noonday anxiety of crime! Person and life are assailed! The terrified inmates are wholly unable to do anything to protect themselves, and a state of terror and lawlessness prevails everywhere. Even some persons who possess means of information that are not open to me, profess to discern in the signs of public feeling, in the views of some hope and some fear, the expectation of something about to happen, something reaching far beyond partial, or local, or even agrarian, disturbance, and calculated to create a greater degree of alarm than anything we have witnessed, or anything that has happened.
'When I come to compare the official returns of crime with those of the preceding period, I find that the total number of offences in this county since the last Assizes is somewhat less in number, even considerably less in number, than in the corresponding or the preceding period of the former years. But the diminution of number affords no assurance or ground of improvement at all, because I find that the diminution is accounted for entirely in the class of offences that acknowledges to some extent the power and influence of the law, namely, in threatening letters and notices, while the amount of open and actual crime is greater than it was in the former period, showing that there is an increased confidence in impunity, and that menace has given place to the deed. Within not more than ten days from the time that I am now speaking, not less than four examples of midnight invasion of houses in this county have occurred, accompanied with all the usual incidents of disguises and arms, and the firing of shots, and violence threatened or committed; in one instance the outrage having been committed upon the residence of a magistrate of this county, a man living with his family in his home, in the supposed delusive security of domestic life, of law, and respect for social station; and in another instance committed upon a humble man, and encountered, I am glad to say, in that instance, with a brave resistance, giving an example of courage which, if it were widely imitated, many of the evils that this country suffers from would no longer exist.
'I need not dwell upon the most aggravated instance of all which this calendar of crime presents—one that is quite recent, and within the memory of you all—the murder of Cornelius Murphy, a humble man, but one enjoying apparently the confidence and respect of all his neighbours, who had done no harm to any person, who was not conscious of any offence, whose house was invaded at a still early hour of the evening, and before the daylight had departed, by a band of men that is shown to have traversed a considerable distance of country, giving opportunities of recognition to many, and with hardly the pretext of an offence on his part, and in reality with the object of private plunder or private hostility—one of those motives that always take advantage of a state of disturbance in order to gratify private ends—slain in his own house in the presence of his own family. Certain persons, it would appear, have been arrested on a charge of complicity with this crime, and it may be that this cruel and wicked crime may be the means of discovering other crimes, and of leading in the end to the detection, if not to the conviction, of persons who have been connected in them, and those who rest in the supposed confidence of impunity may find the spell broken, may find the light of information to reach them, and may find in the end that the law will be able to prevail; because it must be in the experience of many of you that it is unhappily in the power of a few persons who engage in this system of nightly invasion of houses to multiply themselves, apparently by means of terror and intimidation, although at the same time there can be no doubt that, on account of interval of distances, and for many such reasons, there must be many such combinations in this country, acting entirely independent of each other.
'No person can be at a loss to understand the misery and suffering that arises from a state of crime; but perhaps all persons in the community do not equally understand one form of consequence to material prosperity that results from it. I have before me a document that contains most terribly significant evidence of mischief, alike to all classes of the community, that results from crime and a state of social disturbance. I have a return of malicious injuries which form the subject of presentment at these Assizes, in number, I understand, exceeding all former precedent. There are no less than eighty-six presentments, representing all forms of wicked outrage upon property, a tempest—I might say without exaggeration, a tempest—of violence and crime that has swept over a considerable portion of this county. The claims amount to £2700, with the result that the Grand Jury had presented upon a certain part of this county £1250, exercising apparently the greatest care and discrimination in reducing the amount of the claims, and this £1250 was not put upon the whole county, but on certain parts of the county, and the amount at the very least aggravated in a most serious degree the weight of taxation that falls upon the ratepayers of the County Kerry, deepening the difficulties that all classes alike must experience from the depression of the times, and from the other burdens they have to meet in providing against the demands that are made upon them.
'But, of course, you can easily understand that these things do not at all give you any idea of other forms of material injury that arise from crime and disturbance, in the loss of employment and the discouragement of capital, the injury to trade, and the multiplied consequences of all kinds detrimental to the community that arise from insecurity to personal property and life. And to all those evils we have to add another, and perhaps the worst of all—that of which you are all conscious, of which experience and observation reaches you every day in all the forms of social life—a system of unseen terrorism, a system of terror and tyranny that the well-disposed class of the community ought to detest and abhor, and in reference to which, on all sides, I have heard, in this county and other counties, one universal expression of desire—that some means should be found to put an end to it.
'I possess no power myself to effect this state of things, and I cannot say that in the relation to the law which you fill as members of the Grand Jury, or in any other relation to the law, you possess the means to effect it. The duty of providing against so great an evil existing in the community—the duty and the obligation rests with others. My duty is simply confined to representing to you the state of things that exists, and, indeed, in that respect I know that I am doing what is entirely unnecessary, for the state of the County Kerry now, and for a period of five or six years, in all its essential features, is known far beyond the limits of the county, to every single person in the country. I will merely make use of one general observation—that I by no means share in the opinion that has been expressed as to the inability to deal with this state of things. On the contrary, I entertain the most perfect confidence that it is in the power of those who are intrusted with the duty of maintaining the public peace to re-establish order and law and peace in this county. And as my duty is confined to representing that state of things, that duty does not carry me to indicate to those on whom the responsibility rests the means to attain that object.'