Plus ça change: Continuity and Change in a Community, 1891–1914

Casey, Brian

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-71120-1_8

Brian Casey²

143 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter explores the emerging dominance of new local elites and their reticence in assisting the poorest as they sought to augment their new-found positions of influence. By the 1890s it was clear that landlords would have a less important role in local government than previously as the government’s patience was now spent. The success of the land agitation saw the Irish National League emerge as a quasi-governmental force that regulated the countryside. Historiography has suggested that landlords were excluded from participating in local government by an almost atavistic nationalism, though they frequently dislocated themselves from their tenantry. It also explores the emergence of trade union organisation amongst shop assistants, the contentious issue of housing and working-class representation on the urban district council.

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Notes

1.
Speech of Lord Clonbrock regarding the transfer of ownership of land to his tenants, 18 Oct. 1902, National Library of Ireland, Clonbrock Papers, MS 19,668.
2.
Andrew Gailey, ‘Unionist rhetoric and Irish local government reform, 1895–99’, Irish Historical Studies, no. 24 (1984), p. 59.
3.
David Cannadine, The decline and fall of the British aristocracy (New Haven, CT, 1990), p. 139.
4.
Andrew Gailey, Ireland and the death of kindness: The experience of constructive unionism, 1890–1905 (Cork, 1987), pp. 2–3.
5.
Conor Mulvagh, The Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster (Manchester, 2016), p. 2.
6.
Mulvagh, The Irish Parliamentary Party, p. 2.
7.
F.S.L. Lyons, ‘The aftermath of Parnell, 1891–1903’, in W.E. Vaughan (ed.), A new history of Ireland, vi: Ireland under the Union, 1870–1921, p. 81.
8.
Mulvagh, The Irish Parliamentary Party, pp. 64–5.
9.
Mulvagh, The Irish Parliamentary Party, p. 70.
10.
J.C. Beckett, The making of modern Ireland, 1603–1923 (London, 1966), p. 405.
11.
Pauric Travers, Settlements and divisions, Ireland 1870–1922 (Dublin, 1988), pp. 55–8.
12.
Gailey, ‘Unionist rhetoric and Irish local government reform, p. 57.
13.
Beckett, The making of modern Ireland, p. 406; J.J. Lee, The modernisation of Irish society 1848–1918 (Dublin, 1971), p. 127.
14.
See Brian Casey, ‘The decline and fall of the Clancarty estate, 1891–1923’, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society 67 (2015), pp. 171–83.
15.
Gailey, Ireland and the death of kindness, p. 3.
16.
Lyons, ‘The aftermath of Parnell’, A New History of Ireland vi, pp. 81–6.
17.
E.J. Hobsbawm, Industry and empire (London, 1969), p. 203.
18.
Cannadine, The decline and fall of the British aristocracy, p. 139; Terence Dooley, The decline of the Big House in Ireland: A study of Irish landed families, 1860–1960 (Dublin, 2001), p. 212.
19.
Gailey, ‘Unionist rhetoric and Irish local government reform, 1895–99’, p. 58.
20.
Cannadine, The decline and fall of the British aristocracy, p. 472.
21.
Fergus Campbell, Land and revolution: Nationalist politics in the West of Ireland, 1891–21 (Oxford, 2005), p. 289.
22.
Virginia Crossman, Politics, law and order in nineteenth-century Ireland (Dublin, 1996), p. 153.
23.
Gailey, Ireland and the death of kindness, p. 2.
24.
Terence Dooley, ‘The land for the people’: The land question in independent Ireland (Dublin, 2004), p. 91.
25.
Letter from Jeremiah Twomey Castlelyons Fermoy to Francis Tully, 2 May 1899 in Francis Tully papers, Jackie Clarke Collection, Ballina, county Mayo, Box 5/14; L.P. Curtis, The depiction of eviction in Ireland, 1845–1910 (Dublin, 2011), p. 236.
26.
Letter from Jeremiah Twomey Castlelyons Fermoy to Francis Tully, 2 May 1899.
27.
Campbell, Land and revolution, p. 9.
28.
Carla King, ‘“Our destructive countrymen on the west coast”: Relief and development strategies in the congested districts in the 1880s and 1890s’, in Carla King and Conor McNamara (eds.), The West of Ireland: New perspectives (Dublin, 2011), pp. 161–5.
29.
King, ‘“Our destructive countrymen on the western coast”’, p. 170.
30.
King, ‘“Our destructive countrymen on the western coast”’, p. 171.
31.
Ciara Breathnach, The congested districts boards of Ireland, 1891–1923 (Dublin, 2005), p. 137.
32.
Lyons, ‘The aftermath of Parnell’, p. 93.
33.
Philip Bull, ‘The significance of the nationalist response to the Irish land act of 1903’, Irish Historical Studies 28, no. 111 (May 1993), pp. 283–98.
34.
For more, see Patrick John Cosgrove, ‘The Wyndham Land Act, 1903: The final solution to the Irish Land Question?’ (PhD thesis, Maynooth University, 2009), Dooley, The land for the people.
35.
Patrick Cosgrove, The Ranch War in Riverstown, Co. Sligo, 1908 (Dublin, 2012), p. 7.
36.
Cosgrove, ‘The Wyndham Land Act, 1903’, p. 202.
37.
Returns of advances made under the Irish Land Acts, 1903–1909, during the year ended 31st December, 1912–31st December 1919 1914–21 [Cd. 1142, 1247, 1298, 1357, 6507, 6592, 6648, 7223, 7664, 7665, 7761, 7762, 7864, 7925, 8007, 8064, 8093, 8159, 8164, 8118, 8888, 8562, 8646, 8753], [Cmd. 623]; Return of advances made under the Irish Land Purchase Acts, during the months of July, 1915, January, February and March, 1917 1917–19 [Cmd. 57, 68, 370, 1526, 8562, 8646, 8753].
38.
Dooley, The decline of the Big House in Ireland, p. 274.
39.
Cosgrove ‘The Wyndham Land Act, 1903’, pp. 208–9.
40.
Mahon of Castlegar papers, MS 22,373, National Library of Ireland; see also Dooley, The decline of the Big House in Ireland, p. 131.
41.
Cosgrove, ‘The Wyndham Land Act, 1903’, p. 201.
42.
Connacht Tribune, 17 Jun. 1911.
43.
Letter from Jeremiah Twomey Castlelyons Fermoy to Francis Tully, 2 May 1899.
44.
Connacht Tribune, 14 Oct. 1911.
45.
Connacht Tribune, 2 Dec. 1911; Campbell, Land and revolution, pp. 94–6.
46.
Paul Bew, Conflict and conciliation in Ireland, 1890–1910 (Oxford, 1987), pp. 205–6, 208.
47.
Bew, Conflict and conciliation in Ireland, pp. 205–6, 208.
48.
Fergus Campbell discusses the congested districts in greater detail in Land and revolution, pp. 9–11.
49.
David Seth Jones, Graziers, land reform and political conflict in Ireland (Washington, DC, 1993, pp. 209–13, 230–3.
50.
Ann O’Riordan, East Galway agrarian agitation and the burning of Ballydugan house, 1922 (Dublin, 2015), pp. 7, 9–11.
51.
Connacht Tribune, 5 Jun. 1909.
52.
Connacht Tribune, 5 Jun. 1909.
53.
Connacht Tribune, 12 Jun. 1909.
54.
Connacht Tribune, 19 Jun. 1909.
55.
Connacht Tribune, 14 Aug. 1909.
56.
Connacht Tribune, 19 Nov. 1910.
57.
Bew, Conflict and conciliation in Ireland (Oxford, 1987), pp. 206–7.
58.
Bew, Conflict and conciliation, p. 207.
59.
Cannadine, The decline and fall of the British aristocracy, p. 140.
60.
Maura Cronin, Country, class or craft? The politicisation of the skilled artisan in nineteenth-century Cork (Cork, 1994), p. 148.
61.
John Cunningham, Labour in the west of Ireland: Working life and struggle, 1890–1914 (Belfast, 1995), p. 89.
62.
Cunningham, Labour in the west of Ireland, p. 89.
63.
Western Star, 14 Jan. 1899; Cunningham, Labour in the west of Ireland (Belfast, 1995), pp. 137–9.
64.
Western Star, 14 Jan. 1899.
65.
Cunningham, Labour in the west of Ireland, p. 139.
66.
Cunningham, Labour in the west of Ireland, p. 139.
67.
Murray Fraser, John Bull’s other homes: State housing and British policy in Ireland, 1883–1922 (Liverpool, 1996), p. 27.
68.
County Inspector’s monthly report, east Galway, 4 May 1901 (CO 904/72, The National Archives).
69.
Conor McNamara, ‘A Tenants’ League or a shopkeepers’ league? Urban protest and the Town Tenants Association in the west of Ireland, 1909–1918’, Studia Hibernica 36 (2009–10), p. 135.
70.
McNamara, ‘A Tenants’ League or a shopkeepers’ league?, pp. 136–8.
71.
Bew, Conflict and conciliation, p. 205.
72.
Connacht Tribune, 19 Jun. 1909.
73.
Connacht Tribune, 5 Jun. 1915. The 1911 census records a Thomas Sweeney, building contractor, living at Bride Street, Loughrea.
74.
F.S.L. Lyons, ‘The watershed, 1903–07’, in W.E. Vaughan (ed.), A new history of Ireland, vi: Ireland under the Union, 1870–1921.
75.
David Seth Jones, ‘The cleavage between graziers and peasants in the land struggle, 1890–1910’ in Clark and Donnelly, p. 410.
76.
McNamara, ‘A Tenants’ League or a shopkeepers’ league?’, p. 136.
77.
Conor McNamara, ‘Politics and Society in East Galway, 1914–21’ (PhD thesis, St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, 2008), pp. 81–90.
78.
Evidence of J.J. Ward, Digest of Evidence, p. Ixv, (57565); Tenth report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into and report upon the operation of the acts dealing with congestion in Ireland: Evidence and documents, minutes of evidence taken in counties Galway and Roscommon, 18th September to 4th October, 1907, [Cd, 4007], H.C., 1908, Vol. XLII, p. 5.
79.
Fraser, John Bull’s other homes, p. 21.
80.
Connacht Tribune, 1 and 8 Jul. 1911.
81.
East Galway Democrat, 28 Feb. 1914.
82.
East Galway Democrat, 2 Oct. 1914.
83.
McNamara, ‘A Tenants’ League or a shopkeepers’ league?’, p. 148.
84.
Connacht Tribune, 25 Sept. 1909.
85.
McNamara, ‘A Tenants’ League or a shopkeepers’ league?’, pp. 141–3.
86.
East Galway Democrat, 2 Oct. 1914; F.S.L. Lyons, Ireland since the Famine (Dublin, 1971), p. 26.
87.
Interview with Patrick O’Connor, Ballinasloe, Co. Galway, 7 June 2009.
88.
Connacht Tribune, 12 Mar. 1910.
89.
Connacht Tribune, 12 Mar. 1910.
90.
Dooley, The decline of the Big House in Ireland, pp. 208–9, 218–19.
91.
Gailey, Ireland and the death of kindness, pp. 9, 210–13.
92.
Fintan Lane, ‘Rural labourers, social change and politics in late nineteenth-century Ireland’, in Fintan Lane and Donal Ó Drisceoil, Politics and the Irish working class, 1830–1945 (London, 2005), p. 115.
93.
Lane, ‘Rural labourers, social change and politics in late nineteenth century Ireland’, pp. 116–18.
94.
Eric Hobsbawm, Labouring men: Studies in the history of labour (London, 1964), pp. 181–4.
95.
Cunningham, Labour in the west of Ireland, p. 104.
96.
McNamara, ‘A Tenants’ League or a shopkeepers’ league?’, p. 136.
97.
K.T. Hoppen, Ireland since 1800: Conflict and conformity (London, 1989), pp. 109–10.

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Brian Casey

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Casey, B. (2018). Plus ça change: Continuity and Change in a Community, 1891–1914. In: Class and Community in Provincial Ireland, 1851–1914. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71120-1_8

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71120-1_8
Published: 26 April 2018
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