LORD LANSDOWNE'S KERRY ESTATE.
[TO TRH EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—My attention has been called to an article in the Spectator of July the 17th, from which the following is an extract :— " Those who remember a very remarkable book called Realities of Irish Life, by W. Steuart Trench, Land Agent in Ireland,' pub- lished some twelve or more years ago, will remember how Draconic used to be the conditions of tenants' life on Lord Lansdowne's estates,— conditions so severe that on one occasion, of course long before the present Lord Lansdowne's regime, a boy came to a cruel death through the terror felt by his relatives, of whom his grandmother was ono, of sheltering, even for a few days, any one in their cabins whose pre- sence there had not been permitted by the agent. On the Kerry estate of Lord Lansdowne no tenant might shelter his daughter-in- law, if the son married ; and the orphan children of deceased sons were excluded as sternly by the rules as their mother."
A person reading the above words would probably infer that statements justifying them were to be found in Mr. Trench's work. It contains, to the best of my belief, no such statements. In one of the chapters relating to the Kerry estate now in my pos- session, this passage occurs, with regard to the difficulty of pre- venting subdivision :—" Tenants possessed of holdings valued at only kl or £2 per auuum frequently endeavour, openly or by stealth, to subdivide these little plots of laud, and erect huts or sheds upon them for their young people to marry and settle in, utterly regardless of the certain poverty which must neces- sarily await them, where there are no other means of support. And yet if any landlord or agent is determined to resist this system, and to evict those who, in spite of all remonstrances or entreaties, persist in this pernicious course, though the plot of land be scarcely sufficient to feed a goat, and the but be of the most degraded class, he is attacked with a virulence and bitter- ness of hostility which none who do not live in Ireland can imagine."
At the present moment, when a considerable portion of the country is suffering from the consequences of such a subdivi- sion of holdings, it is more than ever obvious that a landlord who permits it is surely bringing ruin upon himself and his tenants. To this extent, I plead guilty to having followed what you are pleased to call "the traditions of an immorally de- spotic landlord authority."
As for the boy who " came to a cruel death," &c., the story, I believe, first made its appearance some thirty years ago, and it is impossible for me to disprove it, after such a lapse of time. I do not, however, hesitate to assert that it is, to say the least, a gross exaggeration, and a specimen of those virulent attacks of which Mr. Steuart Trench complained.—I am, Sir, &c., [The passage quoted by Lord Lansdowne from Mr. Trench's book is remarkably illustrated by the volume of Mr. Senior's " Conversations relating to Ireland," in which he gives his con- versations with the son of Mr. Steuart Trench. " One of my father's great difficulties at Kenmore," said Mr. Thomas Trench, " is his determination that if a younger son or daughter marry, the new couple shall quit the parent cabin." The book called " Realities of Irish Life " is one long illustration of the bitterness of feeling between the agent and the tenants on the estate
referred to. As to the story of the child, we took it from no hearsay, but from Chief Baron Pigott's summing-up of the evid- ence given on the trial, in which he repeatedly declares that the child was refused shelter in one cabin after another, including the lodgings of its own uncle and aunt, from fear of the agent and his rules. " His mother," said Chief Baron Pigott, " had left him, and he was alone and unprotected. He found refuge with his grandmother, who held a farm, from which she was removed in consequence of her harbour- ing this poor boy, as the agent ou the property had given public notice to the tenantry that expulsion would be the penalty inflicted on them if they harboured any persons having no residence on the estate." " He came to Casey's house, where you, his uncle and aunt, resided. He applied for relief, as he was in a state of destitution. Casey, with whom you lodged, desired you to turn him from the house, as lie was afraid the orders of the agent would be enforced against him." In speaking of this case, we carefully noted that it happened long before the present Marquis's rgejime. Indeed, he must have been an infant at the time. But there is no manner of doubt about the story, if Chief Baron Pigott was to be trusted.—En. iS'pectator.]
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