How the Irishtown meeting of April 1879 was a catalyst for Land Reform and for the Land League

PART ONE

by Anthony Layng

The famous Irishtown meeting that took place near Claremorris on April 20, 1879, was the catalyst for the later establishment of the Land League of Mayo on August 16, 1879.

Arguably, the reform of agricultural land and the introduction of improved tenant rights would not have been achieved had it not been for the foundational success of The Irishtown Meeting, a meeting in which The Connaught Telegraph played a central and pivotal role.

The immediate cause of The Irishtown Meeting was a protest against threatened evictions of the tenants on the Bourke estate.

The landlord, Joseph Bourke, who had inherited the estate from his father in 1873, was an army surgeon stationed in the Hampshire in England. (The landlord was a nephew of Canon Geoffrey Bourke but the Canon had no involvement in the Estate.)

As early as 1872, a number of local land activists, namely Matthew Harris, John O'Connor Power (who was elected as an MP in 1874) and, most significantly in organisational terms, James Daly, were becoming increasingly concerned about unaffordable rents, evictions by landlords, poor agricultural conditions, bad harvests, greater competition in the market for agricultural produce and much reduced opportunity for seasonal agricultural labouring for tenant farmers in Wales and in Scotland.

A delegation of the tenants met with James Daly shortly before and then after the service of the notice of evictions of the tenants in the Bourke Estate in January 1879.

For James Daly and others, including Matthew Harris and John O'Connor Power, MP, the Bourke Estate episode was the ideal opportunity to bring their land activism to the next level.

In addition, the perfect storm of factors that were resulting in massive reduction in the income of tenant farmers meant that The Irishtown Meeting would also be an ideal forum for ventilating all of these systemic, larger concerns.

The idea was simple. In addition to the publicity and awareness promoted by The Connaught Telegraph, of which James Daly was the editor, a monster meeting was to be held as a protest in order to gather as many people as possible opposition to the evictions.

James Daly, using resources of The Connaught Telegraph and of local activists, organised this monster meeting.

A wealthy barrister and grazier named John J. Loudon of Westport was quick to provide assistance and the necessary financial support for the expenses of the meeting. Daly was willing to contribute part of the cost of erecting a large platform for the speakers, most of the expenses being met by Loudon.

Initially, the meeting was scheduled for February 1879 and the date was announced in The Connaught Telegraph.

Michael Davitt returned briefly to Mayo in February 1879. He had heard about the intended February meeting.

He urged that it be deferred into April so that more prominent and attention attracting speakers could be invited.

Reluctantly it was agreed to defer it to April 20, 1879, a Sunday. Whilst away from Mayo, Michael Davitt drafted the two first resolutions for the meeting, the first calling for the regaining of inalienable rights for the people by all lawful means and the second that the land of Ireland was for the sustenance of its people.

The local land activists were responsible for the third resolution which focused on preventing unjust increases in rent pending the settlement of the land question.

Proximity to the Bourke estate was an ideal location for a mass meeting because it was on the border of the boundaries between the three counties of Mayo, Galway and Roscommon.

The Connaught Telegraph and its resources were the primary instruments of the organisation of the meeting. The newspaper was the epicentre of this great moment of organisation and coordination.

It was, to borrow the words of the distinguished historian TW Moody, “a local production."

It was never intended that Michael Davitt, who was in the exposed position of being out on early release from prison - a ticket of leave, would attend.

There had been suggestions that a number of MPs, including Charles Stewart Parnell, MP, might attend. The announcement of the meeting on April 10 promised a considerable attendance but, in the final event, the only MP to attend was John O'Connor Power, MP.

The meeting itself was to be chaired by James Daly, as editor of The Connaught Telegraph.

The organisers’ intention was that the meeting would act as a clarion call to all tenant farmers throughout the province of Connacht.

It would to call them into organised resistance to landlords, to advance the cause of 3F's - fair rent, free sale and fixity of tenure.

In the background, there was a number of other issues, including the notion of a peasant proprietary so that eventually landlords would be displaced and the freehold (fee simple) of the tenant holdings acquired by the tenants themselves, thus involving the elimination of landlordism of agricultural landholdings in Ireland.

From February to April 1879 there followed an intensive and indefatigable collective effort of the part of the local organisers under the banner of ‘The West’s Awake’, the land for the people.

In the immediate term the objective was to send the strongest possible message to the landlord, Joseph Bourke, that he would not be able get away with his evictions and that he would be required to reduce rents to align more closely with the Griffiths Valuation on the basis of which landlords paid taxation.

More generally, in a situation of declining productivity, declining prices, bad harvests and the looming spectre of famine, urgent mitigation steps were required to prevent tenants from being evicted from their holdings and to enable tenant farmers to survive the crisis.

On April 10, 1879, the Irishtown meeting was publicised through The Connaught Telegraph and through posters and placards designed, organised, printed and distributed by The Connaught Telegraph.

All of the preparatory efforts centred on The Connaught Telegraph. Without the support of the paper it was unlikely that the Irishtown meeting would have been such a resounding success and to have achieved the massive turnout.

Estimates of attendance vary from well in excess of 7,000 people and to as many as 15,000 people.

In the next article, I will describe the significance of the proceedings at the meeting.

In the final article I will examine the enormous legacy and ground-breaking nature of the meeting that set the course of a series of events and had a lasting impact on the course of Irish history into the 20th century.