Clare Past Forum

Found this article by chance and thought it would be of interest. The Clare library has lots of good information on the Bodyke evictions including an overview of the 1880's Land War: "The first phase, lasting until 1882, witnessed a violent struggle between landlords and tenants, orchestrated by the tenants’ rights organisation, the Land League." The incidents detailed in this article would definitely be from this more violent first phase of the land struggle.

Please wait to judge the character of the 25 prisoners until I post the spirited defense written by Father Patrick White the parish priest of Miltown-Malbay in next post!

From the Irish Nation (NY) newspaper of 19 May 1883 (from genealogybank newspaper archive).

CONSPIRACY IN CLARE

Twenty-five Prisoners Arraigned Before
Mr. Castle Inquisitor Purcell

BOGUS BROTHERHOODS

Efforts to Saddle the Land League with
Responsibility for Agrarian Outrages

TREASON-FELONY CHARGES

Crown Prosecutors Intimidating Unwilling
Witnesses to Swear to Order

An adjourned inquiry into the alleged conspiracy to murder in Clare, was resumed in Ennis Courthouse on Thursday, the 3d inst. There are 25 prisoners in all, viz,: Patrick Loughrey, John Harte, Charles Harte, Denis Hanrahan, John Hanrahan, Pat'k McNamara, Thomas McNamara, Patrick Walsh, James Grady, James Kennedy, Patrick McInerey, and Michael Tierney, all from Crusheen; Patrick Murphy, James Ryan, and John Verlin, of Tubber; Michael Breen, Thomas Burke, Matthew Cleary, Michael Ashir, Patrick Griffin, John O'Neill, Patrick O'Neill, Patrick McInerney, Cornelius Killeen and John Burke, all from Miltown-Malbay.

Amongst the witnesses who have been examined at the former sitting were Mrs. Margaret Lennane, daughter-in-law of John Lennane, who was shot dead in his own house near Miltown-Malbay, on the night of the 24th of January, 1882, he being at the time a herdsman to Mrs. Moroney, who at the time was boycotted by her tenants; Catherine Moroney, whose evidence related to the murder of her husband on the 15th of February, 1882, when eight or ten men came into the house and said to her husband - "You paid rent;" she and the little children went on their knees and begged them for God's sake not to kill her husband, but they dragged him to the hearth and shot him in the legs, and he died six days after; also three other witnesses, who proved the posting and delivery of a letter on the 22d of August last to Mr. Michael Coffee, Cappamore, Cursheen, in which Coffee was warned to stop his son from cutting hay for Mr. Nealon of Doon, otherwise he would die "the death of a traitor to the National cause." The letter purported to come from "Headquarters, Loughrea."

.....detailed testimony of the day given...

The Clare library's historical background of Milton-Malbay refers to the Moronys including a boycott against her by 1888 - which according to above proceedings appears to have started as early as 1882:

During the Great Hunger, many tenants were evicted by the unpopular landlords, the Moronys. In later times Mrs Burdett Morony rack-rented tenants on her estate while the adjoining Fitzgerald and Leconfield estates maintained the most cordial relationships with their tenants throughout the 1880's. By 1888 the situation between Mrs Morony and her tenants had escalated to such an extent that a boycott was operated against her. By the end of that year most of the shopkeepers and publicans of Miltown Malbay had been imprisoned for refusing to serve Mrs Morony or her servants.

http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclar ... istory.htm

I'm being a bit mischievous here, but just in case people get the wrong impression of West Clare natives, Mrs Moroney was from Limerick!

Death of Mrs E.L. Moroney of Miltown House. Daughter of the late Mr Dartnell, Solicitor, Limerick. Married to the late Burdett Moroney J.P. D.L. Story of boycott etc. Owned Atlantic Hotel at Spanish Point and several seaside lodges. Property reverts to Colonel Moroney. (Funeral report 19th August)
Saturday Record 12 August 1911

Lucille

The below letter by Father Patrick White is from the Irish American Weekly (NY) newspaper (genealogy bank archive) of 4 March 1882, but was initially published in the Dublin Freeman's Journal of 11 February 1882. This letter was written prior to the second murder of the husband of Catherine Moroney which occurred on the 15th of February.

The 1883 article in the last post does not make it clear what is the connection, if any, between the Mrs. (Burdett) Moroney (the landlord of John Lennane, the first murdered man) and Catherine Moroney, the husband of the 2nd murdered man?

While there were screaming headlines in 1883 for the start of the inquest (was there a trial?), I'm still looking in the archive for the outcome.

Father Patrick White gets a few mentions on the Clare Library site, including a link to his 1893 book "History of Clare and the Dalcassian Clans of Tipperary, Limerick, and Galway". The events of Miltown Malbay are only mentioned briefly in one paragraph at the very end of his book on page 375:

http://www.archive.org/stream/historyof ... 4/mode/2up

I googled Patrick White and Miltown Malbay to learn more about the priest. And what is really odd is that "Miltown Malbay" in the Dutch version of Wikipedia is 100 times better than the English version - unless that is you need to know how many hairdressers are in the town! Check out the difference in these links:

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milltown_Malbay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milltown_Malbay

The Dutch version is excellent and provides a very detailed history of the area with a separate heading for the Moroney boycott.

Here is the news article from the Irish American Weekly:

THE ARRESTS IN MILTOWN-MALBAY

The following letter from the Rev. Patrick White, the respected and patriotic Parish Priest of Miltown Malbay, on the recent arrests in his district, appears in the Dublin Freeman's Journal of Feb. 11:-

MILTOWN-MALBAY, Feb 9th
Sir --The swoop made upon this district, resulting in the arrest of about a score of respectable inhabitants, is intended, I presume, as a display of the wonderful energy of Mr. Clifford Lloyd - the Czar, under a "Liberal" Government, of the counties of Clare and Limerick, - and also as a retaliation for the cruel murder committed lately in the locality. There are circumstances attending that crime which should be, I think, made known to the public. It is notorious that the unfortunate man who was murdered had incurred the dislike of his neighbors because he continued in the employment of a landlady -- Mrs. Morony -- upon whose property two evictions had already taken place, and more were threatened. Her tenants nearly all held under leases debarring them from the protection of the Land Act, and were reduced almost to beggary by the bad seasons and the exaction, without a penny of reduction (in the blackest period of the famine) of rents varying from about two to more than three times the Government valuation. Not a hand was raised against Lennane during all the months the worst possible feeling existed between Mrs. Morony and her tenants. But, about a week before the murder, Mrs. Morony notified to her tenants her willingness to sell the property under the Land Act, and allow them, if they could, to purchase their farms. The greatest joy prevailed. I called them all together, and they sent a deputation to her to express their willingness to close with an arrangement, the only possible one in the interests of the peace of the parish. They all joyfully promised me to let "bygones be bygones." the very night after this, the man was murdered. Now, where is the motive of the foul murder to be sought for ? Not, certainly among the people, who now at last saw, as they were led to believe, within their reach, what they and the Land League had all along aspired to -- the prospect of becoming owners of their farms. Much as they disliked the unfortunate man before, the cause of dislike was now removed. They utterly abhor the crime, and they loudly declare that it must have been the work of an enemy -- of some one whose interest it is to keep up a state of bad feeling between landlords and tenants; some one like those hired bravoes duly licensed to carry arms, and whose "occupation would be gone" if landlords or agents no longer needed their doubtful protection. It is, worthy, too, of notice, that, a very short time before the murder, a close search was made, unexpectedly, for arms in every house on the property, and not so much as a grain of shot was found. The whole district -- all West Clare, in fact, was perfectly peacable all along through the agitation. For generations there was no murder committed in the district, except the Stacpoole murder, which was the result of a family feud; and yet the authorities in arresting so many inoffensive men, the bread-winners of twenty struggling families, would seem to imply that they believed there was a huge conspiracy to murder a miserable old man, and that, too, just at the time when all motive for any attack upon him had vanished. I trust you, sir, will allow me to protest loudly in their name against the foul imputation on their hitherto stainless character, and to respectfully ask the authorities to extend the sphere of their suspicions.

P. WHITE, P.P.