It was during this election that I was fired at one night at Aghadoe, returning from Puck Fair at Killorghin. A rumour was started that it was the work of one of the tenants on Sir George Colthurst's Cork estates, and the Tralee correspondent of the Examiner telegraphed his belief in this, adding 'so repugnant are Kerry men to these dastardly outrages.'
They took to them as greedily as a duck to water in later times, as all the world knows; and in the light of subsequent events it is delightful to remember that the Freeman stated, 'All condemn this dastardly act, for Mr. Hussey is universally respected.'
It atoned for this lapse into truth by subsequently taking my name in vain hundreds of times in the bad periods that were ahead.
There had been a libel case between the Rev. Denis O'Donoghue, parish priest of Ardfert, and myself. The address of this cleric in proposing Mr. Blennerhasset at the nomination had annoyed those he assailed intensely. Up to that point I had been utterly indifferent, but after that I strained every nerve to defeat Father O'Donoghue's nominee.
This is an extract from his speech at Ardfert:—
'Sam Hussey is a vulture with a broken beak, and he laid his voracious talons on the consciences of the voters. (Boos.) The ugly scowl of Sam Hussey came down upon them. He wanted to try the influence of his dark nature on the poor people. (Groans). Where was the legitimate influence of such a man? Was it in the white terror he diffused? Was it not the espionage, the network of spies with which he surrounded his lands? He denied that a man who managed property had for that reason a shadow of a shade of influence to justify him in asking a tenant for his vote. What had they to thank him for?'
A voice: 'Rack rents.'
'They knew the man from his boyhood, from his gossoonhood. He knew him when he began with a collop of sheep as his property in the world. (Laughter.) Long before he got God's mark on him. It was not the man's fault but his misfortune that he got no education. (Laughter.) He had in that parish schoolmasters who could teach him grammar for the next ten years. The man was in fact a Uriah Heep among Kerry landlords. (Cheers.)'
The result of this and other incentives to irritability was that the voters for Mr. Dease had to be escorted by troops and constabulary.
The sporting proclivities had already been shown over a race. In the County Club at Tralee there was an altercation between Mr. Sandes and a leading 'Deasite' as to the rival merits of a bay mare belonging to one and a chestnut horse owned by the other.