The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1904-02-20
A Chapter Of Irish History Which Aroused
Intense Hostility to British Rule
in Ireland.
Eviction of These Tenants Called Attention
Of the World to Infamy of Irish
LandlordiSm.

The announcement just made by the
Irish papers that the Coolgreany evict-
ed tenants in County Wexford are
about to be reinstated in their homes
under the new land act recalls one of
the most stirring incidents connected
with the entire land struggle in Ireland
from the establishment of the Land
League in 1879, says the Irish World.
The attack on Saunders fort and
Somers' fort on the Coolgreany estate,
and the murder of John Kinsella, and
the imprisonment both of the leaders
OF the people and the tenants them
selves, all form a striking chapter in
the history of the land war in the years
from 1885 to $780, Tim Saunders, of
Saunders fort, and Tom Somers, of
Somers' fort, were figures quite as we'll
known on English platforms in the his
tory of the Land League movement
almost as the leaders of the people
themselves.
The struggle which these brave fell
lows made against being thrown on
the roadside aroused the most intense
hostility to the government in Ireland,
and at one time, almost shook to its
foundation the power of the English
government itself in it's citadel at
Westminster.
Gladstone, Morley and the other
English Liberals could find no more
effective way in those years of arous-
ing English audiences to the atrocities
being perpetrated in ireland under the
name of law than by recalling the
struggles of such men as the Cool
CREAMY tenants, who, by strange
stroke of fortune, are now to be put
back in the homes from which they
were driven forth under the grise of
Jaw in 1886.
There is, too, a touch of poetic JUS
tice in the fate which has decreed that
the landlord who then evicted them,
Sir George F. Brooke, is now to have
his own demesne cut up into lots to
the men whom he then evicted
The case of John Kinsella, tenant
on the Coolgreany property, who was
murdered by an emergency man en-
gagged in the evictions, was one of the
most noted in the history of the Irish
land struggle, and was frequently
quoted on English platforms by states
men friendly to the Irish cause. 1t was
one of the most cold-blooded atrocities
perpetrated in the course of the strug-
gle, and for the murder of Kinsella
nobody up to this day has been made
amenable, although five witnesses
sworc that they saw one Of the emer-
gency men named Freeman shoot him
dead.
The Coolgreany estate is situated
about four miles southeast of the town
OF Arklow and the same distance from
the sea in the northern portion of
County Wexford There is a village
of the same name close by, and the
property extends over a gradually ris-
ing area to the slopes of Croghar
Kinsella, whose highest point, 2,oo
feet above the sea level, is landmark
for miles around.
The tenants on the Coolgreany estate,
like most OF the other tenants in Ire
land in 1886, found themselves unable
to pay the rents for their farms which,
were demanded by the landlord, Major
George F. Brooke. They sought re-
duction, but it was refused, and they
then combined under the "plan of cam
paign" to enforce reduction. The
outcome was that the landlord pro-
ceeded to extremes and evicted up
ward of 100 families. The tenants, out
of the money subscribed for the 'plan
of campaign" fund, which was really
the total of the rent, less the amount
OF reduction demanded, proceeded to
provide temporary homes for the ten
ants who had been evicted. These
we're put on adjoining farms in the
neighborhood, so that the tenants
could still keep supervision of the
evicted holdings. Small plots OF half
acre or less of land which were lying