bailiffs

A sad day.

What a sad indictment on capitalism (or absentee landlords, or both).

What amazes me is how long we took to outlaw ground rent. Maybe you should have published more of these pictures sooner. Still, at least we're better than the neighbours, who are only considering outlawing it now.

Oh dear - it is eviction time again. Sad and fascinating at the same time. 1888 according to this Trove find about the landlord, Mr James E. Byrne, "The Hermit of Coolroe", who died in 1898. - trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/211842833

WEXFORD. Death of the " Hermit of Coolroe." — Mr. James E. Byrne, better known as the " Hermit of Coolroe," died on Tuesday, Feb. 22 [1898], at Rosemount, outside New Ross. He was a bachelor, and had attained to nearly 90 years of. age. He was a most remarkable old man, who possessed an extraordinary amount of obstinacy and determination. He inherited the Coolroe Estate in South Wexford, and in the year '88 gained an unenviable notoriety by the wholesale eviction of his tenants, who were driven; by inability to pay exorbitant rents, to adopt the Plan of Campaign. One of the tenants' houses, known as "Somers' Fort," was fortified and defended by twelve armed men, but after a long struggle, and chiefly through the agency of the battering ram, it was taken. All attempts at reconciliation or reinstatement were unavailing so far as the landlord was concerned, and the tenants are still at the back of the ditches.

Full 1888 description - Read All About It ! - trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/226677328 This report includes all the names of the 12 defenders - trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/115458961

The evicting force came in the early forenoon to find the house locked and barricaded against them, while the yards and adjoining fields were crowded with sympathetic neighbours and townspeople who had been summoned by the ringing of Church bells and blowing of horns. To a demand for possession, Tim Hurley replied that if they wanted possession they'd have to fight for it. When the bailiffs rushed with a battering ram against the shuttered parlour window, they were met with showers of scalding water from the upstairs windows. The eviction failed! www.failteromhat.com/castleviewevictions.php

OSI 25" link: maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,542570,544838,7,9

Niall McAuley Thanks Niall. Good clear account, but no light cast on the Land League Hut...

Arrangements had been made to build a hut for the evicted tenant if the eviction were successful, and in the evening about two thousand persons assembled in the town with thirty carts, and conveyed the materials of the hut to Hurley's holding, near Hurley's holding, near which they erected it. Bands were in attendance, and the proceedings were marked by great rejoicings. trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/75850828

Niall McAuley Excellent! That explains the hut then - well done, Trove! And you too, Niall... :)