The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-09-28
CAPTAIN MOONLIGHT"
Picturesque Irish Heros Death Revives Memories of His Gallant Fight Against Despotic Landlordism Thomas J. Reidy, Local Leader, Recalls
 BoyhoOd Days of Friend Destined for
 HOnOrs-MemOral Proposed.

Word has just reached this city of the death of the first Capt. Moonlight (Robert Finn), through whose efforts landlordism was driven out of Ireland in the Revolutionary Land War of the elate 1S00's Capt. Moonlight was neigh bor and friend of Thomas J. Reidy, now sexton of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, and leader in To- cal Irish movements. The famed Irishman died August 9th.
 Of Capt. Moonlight, MT. Reidy said today: II knew Bob Finn as a boy and though he must have had in his head q great store of anecdotes of /his companions and himself, as far as l know nobody ever heard him relate them. He devoted his time to his cooperage busi- ness. He was a genial man. thoguh inclined to the serious side. and he had the respect of all who knew him."
 Life History
 Tt was "Capt. Moonlight" and those with him who first made it possible for the Irish farmer to become landowner instead of a perpetual rent payer.
 An account of the life of Capt. Moonlight, as written by T. M. Donovan for "The Kerryman", follows in part:
 "An account of how these Castleisland moonlighters start ed out to put down land-grab- ping is to be found in the files of "The kcrryman." Land grabbing was the principal agent used by the landlords to screw the last shilling out of the unfortunate man on the land; and when 1t came about that no one would take an eyicted farm, land-lordism was doomed. It was the moonlighter that nipped the land-grabber in the bud, stopped grabbing for ever, and thus brought the un- holy and wicked syS.em to an end. The absentee landlord and the ruthless land-agent were strung In their evict- ing stride and the Land League and the Irish Parliamentary Party, helping to dig the grave, all were cleared off the land; landlord, agent, bailiff, rent warner and grabbcr were bur iedt in the same pit. and the Gaels possessed his fathers land once more.
 ' WrOngcd No One
 '.It must not be forgotten that 1t was Bob Films moon- lighters that first killed off the grabbers who were the foun- dation stone of the cruel sys- tenn of the rack-renters. And 1t must be forever remembered that in doing so he and his men never committed any act that would bring the blush of shame to the face on an Irish man. On the contrary, he as l have shown in my History of East Kerry" prevented many a meditated crime when he found that the instigators were only out to satisfy some pri- vatc feud or to revenge some fancied wrong. While he wRs In command no man or gro4p could induce him to do a wrong to the humblest man in the country. I give 8 few instances of this in my book and in my writings in "The kerryman."
 "In his young days he was a great athlete. As a runner and jun per he was in the first flight; and even as a weight thrower he held his own among bigger and more broad-shoul- dered men. He jumped the River Maine at Q place where the writer, after getting his feet on the opposite bank, slith- cred backward into the pool. Bob cleared 1t with a few feet to spare. He was the first to own and ride a boncshaker bi- cycle--the high "penny-farth- ing" solid tyred machine that preceded the pneumatic cycle of the present day. When he became the first Captain Moon- light in 1879. he was physical ly. one of the finest young fel- lows in East Kerry. Fifty years ago he took part in a great footbal match, between Currow and Castleisland, and for 1s years he was the captain of the