The Irish standard., 1889-08-03
VIM. 0'BRlEN IN TlPPERARY.
He Addresses the TenantrY on the
Smith Barry Estates and En-
courages Them.
A VERY ENTHUSIASTIC MEETING,
He Paints g. Clear Picture Of the Irish
Landlord ard What he
Demands.

Landlord eId What DE
Demands.
Mr. William O'Brien addressed an
immense audience at Tipperary several
DAYS ago on the formation of the new
Defense League, and roasted the land
lords who we're crushing the lives out
CT their poor unfortunate tenants. Mr.
O;Brlen, who was received with cheers,
said:
Father Power, Lady Robinson, and
fellow -countrymen, l am delighted to
have chance of meeting again this
splendid representative gathering OF
Tlpperary tenants Of Smith-Barry and
of the men of this whole splendid dis
trict of Tipperary. Lam glad, because
/ am in position to make an an-
nouncement. / think I might go so far
as to say momentous announcement.
The landlords have challenged and
forced, | MI yht say they fogged the
Irish tenantry into combining for their
own protection, and l venture to pro-
mise them that they are in for it, that
they are now going to find themselves
face to face with the greatest comblna-
tion of Irish tenantry they have ever
encountered (cheers). It would he pre-
mature for me to-day to go into par
ticulars, but many weeks Will not
elapse, l rather think many days will
not elapse, before we are In position
to take the public into our confidence
more fully than I can do to-day; but
this much CAN tell you, that we are Oh
The eve of combination for the protec-
tion Of the tenantry OF ireland, which
will command the assent Of the most
honored and most illustrious names in
Ireland, and which will command the
united strength and energy Of the whole
Irish party. and will command the
energies of the whole Irish race through
out the world (cheers). Mr.. SmitL-Barry
and his syndicate have done that much
for us (laughter) I have never known
anything in nv experience to equal
the intensity Of the spirit which has
been aroused throughout Ireland and
throughout England by this cruel and
insolent aggression of the landlords
(hear, hear. The landlords have gone
one step too far (hear, hear). They
believed that they were only dealing
with a handful of men. They believed
that they had only 10 get handful of
US under lock and key like your own
two gallant members for Tipperary
(cheers). They thought they bad only to
get a few men like John O'Connor
(cheers) and Tom Condor icheers) into
prison and that, practically speaking,
they would have a free hand to beat
the Ponsonby tenants to the earth, and
to plunder and despoil them as sacri-
fees on the altar of Ian ilord vengeance
(groans). They believed that, Well,
it is not the hrst time. They are cruel
and unteachable brutes. They believed
that we were deserted, and that
we we're weary. They imagined that
they had only to make one more display
of their money and of their bayonets
in order to break the backbone of the
tenants combination, and they i'm
agined that the people Of ireland would
stand by in silepce and that they would
submit while these PonsonDy tenantry
and all the gallant men who are fight
ing the cause of the Irish tenantry
were despoiled, plundered, extermina
ted, in order to satiate their vengeance.
It is not the first time that the landlords
of Ireland have even been more stupid
than they we're cruel. They have simply
put the whole Irish race upon their
metal. They haye brought into the
field the whole fighting forces of the
Irish PARTY (cheers), under it's illustrious
leader, Charles Stewart Parnell (cheers)
"a party that has before now revolu-
tionized Ireland and overthrown Min
istries They have given us an oppor-
tun1ty of fencing round these prosecuted
bodies of Irish teEantry with ramparts
of impregnaDle legality. They have
opened fer us road, sure and quick
road, to the hearts and sympathies of
every English workingman, and now
on their own heads be the consequences;
and after three years of fruitless
coercion if they now lind themselves
beginning just where they began two
years ago. against a combination fifty
fold more extensive, more lawful, and
more unassailable than the partial and
isolated combination against which for
the last three years they have been
finging all the forces Of landlordism
and Dublin Castle, and flinglng them in
vain (cheers). There are some lines in
an old poem