Motives of all the crimes committed in Munster, 1833, as far as can be collected from the Reports of the InspectorsGeneral: Crimes connected with the occupation of land 140 employment of labourers 67 taxes, and the enforcing of their payment by law It will be seen that the general descriptions of the objects of the Whiteboy disturbances, given by the different witnesses, entirely agree with the details which have been just presented with respect to the province of Munster. 6 "The offences I allude to (says Mr. Justice Jebb, in addressing the grand jury of the county of Limerick in the Special Commission of 1831) are offences against statutes too well known to you under the name of the Whiteboy Acts; and that species of crime against which these Acts provide may be fairly characterized in a few words, as a war of the peasantry against the proprietors and occupiers of land.' The object of this warfare is to deprive the proprietors and occupiers of land of the power of disposing of their property as they may think fit, to dictate to them the terms on which their estates and property shall be dealt out to the peasantry, and to punish by all the means that can be resorted to such as disobey those dictates which the people think proper to issue †." *See further note (B). Report of the Proceedings under a Special Commission in the counties of Limerick and Clare in May and June, 1831. By Peter Gorman. p. 3. The pretence (says Chief Justice Bushe, on the disturbances in the Queen's County in 1832) has been the redress of grievances, some alleged to exist in one district and some in another, but all substantially of the same character. If a landlord looks for a good tenant, if a farmer proposes for a vacant farm, if a master hires a servant from another county or province, if a higher rent or lower wages have been paid than those confederates approve, if the tithes of the Protestant clergy in one county or the dues of the Roman Catholic clergy in another have exceeded that minimum which those confederates have established, all these have been represented from time to time as so many grievances, and the deluded people have persuaded themselves, or have been persuaded by others, to think that it was their duty to redress them *." Matthew Barrington, Esq.:- "Have you had opportunities of becoming acquainted with the associations commonly called the Whitefeet?—Not under that name, but under the various other names that the Whiteboy system has assumed at different times. " You consider this association as a sort of part and branch of the general system of association which has existed in Ireland for so many years?—I do. I find that the Whiteboy system has for the last sixty years continued under different names; as, Peep-o'-day-boys, Thrashers, Whiteboys, Righters, Carders, Shanavats, Caravats, Rockites, Black-hens, Riskavallas, Ribbon-men, the Lady Clares, the Terry Alts: these latter were the names they assumed last year in Clare. Now we have the Whitefeet and Blackfeet. The outrages have been of the same kind for the last sixty years; the only variation is, that the horrid torture called carding' has not been used at all latterly; a few years back that system (which was a dreadful mode of torturing a person whom they wished to punish) was in frequent practice. "In speaking of the objects of the associations, some are alleged to be for a repeal of tithes, and others for different *Maryborough Special Commission, 1832. p. 3. purposes?—They have always had objects connected more or less with land. The preamble to the Irish Act of 15 and 16 George III. almost describes the present state of the country. Associations have been formed for regulating the prices of land, attacking houses, administering oaths, delivering threatening notices, taking arms, taking horses at night and returning them again in the morning, taking away girls, murders of proctors and gaugers, preventing exportation of provisions, digging up land, destroying fences, houghing cattle, resisting the payment of tithes, and other outrages similar to those which have occurred in Clare last year, and which are now the subject of investigation in the Queen's County. "In what year did that Act pass?—In the year 1775; and it was considered the first Whiteboy Act in Ireland. [Above p. 10.] "Be good enough to explain what appears to you to be the cause of these several outrages?-Since I have been crown solicitor I have endeavoured to get at the root of the system by tracing each outrage to its immediate cause. A few of these cases will, I think, give much more information to the Committee than any general observations or opinions. I have traced the origin of almost every case I prosecuted, and I find that they generally arise from the attachment to, the dispossession of, or the change in the possession of land; hatred of tithe proctors prior to the Composition Act; and from the passing of that Act until the last year we had not in Munster a single outrage relating to tithe; previous to the Composition Act we had several murders of proctors. Then the compelling the reduction of prices of provisions, the want of employment, and in Clare the want of potato ground; the introduction of strangers as workmen. One of the outrages at Clare, for which fourteen men were convicted, was that of a Kerry man going to get work in Clare; his house was attacked and prostrated. I have never known a single case of direct hostility to the Government as a government, although hostility to the law leads to hostility to the Government; but as to direct opposi tion to the Government, I never knew an instance of that being the object. "Can you mention any other cases?-The murder of Mr. Blood in Clare was by a gang of robbers, whose object was plunder. The murder of Maloney at Cratloe, in Clare, for taking a farm which another person had been dispossessed of. The attack on another Maloney in the same county, to compel him to set potato ground at a low rate (he died of the wounds he received). The attack of the Kerry men for going into that county to work. The murder of Mr. Hoskins in the county of Limerick, for his father endeavouring to enforce payment of rent without allowing an abatement which it was said had been promised. The murder of Mr. Going, for being a magistrate under the Insurrection Act. A great number of cases for compelling parties to quit the farms they had taken, of which others were dispossessed; the persons refusing to quit their farms were in some instances murdered, in others severely beaten. Frequent cases of attacks on witnesses for having prosecuted. Numbers of cases of taking arms of which the people are desirous to be possessed. And numerous cases of armed parties committing burglaries and robberies on the poor farmers *."H. C. 1832. Nos. 2-7. Rev. Nicholas O'Connor : Let us notice the "What are the principal objects they have in view?—To keep themselves upon their lands. I have often heard their conversations, when they say, What good did the emancipation do us? are we better clothed or fed, or our children better clothed and fed? are we not as naked as we were, and eating dry potatoes when we can get them? farmers to give us better food and better wages, and not give so much to the landlord and more to the workmen; we must not let them be turning the poor people off the ground.' Then some of them that went to England, and saw the way the English labourers are fed and clothed, came back and told them, If you saw the way that the English labourers lived, * Mr. Barrington gave evidence to the same effect before the Lords' Committee in 1825, p. 302, which it is unnecessary to cite, as his opinions are more fully developed in the extract in the text. |