A roadside plaque commemorating a large-scale public gathering to hear Charles Stewart Parnell advocate for an end to eviction and the right to own land is to be unveiled on Friday near Killarney.
An estimated 3,000 people, most of them tenant farmers at risk of eviction, turned out on a field in Beaufort to hear Parnell, a founder of the Land League, speak on Sunday, May 16th, 1880.
The Co Kerry meeting was the biggest such meeting nationally in 12 months and Parnell had arrived by train to Killarney to speak.
The meeting was held in Patrick O’ Sullivan’s field, south of Beaufort Bar. Anne O’Sullivan, daughter of Patrick, later gave an account of how Parnellites canvassed local tenants for a suitable site.
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John O’Mahony, the landlord at the time, who resided in nearby Dunloe Castle – now a five-star hotel – let it be known that any of his tenants who facilitated the meeting would be evicted from his lands.
Despite this, her father Patrick O’Sullivan made his field available, Anne recounted. The turnout being so high, O’Mahony allowed the matter to rest.
Organiser Padruig O’Sullivan said the idea of the commemoration was to mark the meeting but also to recall the struggle for land and home ownership.
Mr O’Sullivan is a descendant of the family that opened its lands to host the meeting.
“We take many things for granted in today’s modern world. Parnell’s efforts in ensuring that we Irish have ownership of our own lands needs to be recalled,” Mr O’Sullivan said.
A report of a meeting with Parnell was carried in the Dundalk Democrat on May 22nd, 1880.
It details how the “land meeting” drew 3,000 people who “assembled to proclaim to the world that the present land laws required a change and to punish the men who attempted to drive the people from their homes (cheers)”.
Parnell was described as “the leader of the Irish people”, again to cheers from the crowd.
Daniel O’Donoghue, known as The O’Donoghue and then-MP for Tralee, thought the scene of landlord tyranny was the proper place to hold a meeting, the report said.
“Mr Parnell, who was received with vociferous cheering, said it was the largest land meeting he had attended since in the County Mayo 12 months ago. They initiated the land agitation which will swap the vital system of landlordism. The people of Ireland were now united in a great movement – the greatest undertakings that anyone could engage in – the task of obtaining for the people the land of their native country.
“But in this work they were beset by difficulties and dangers of no ordinary character. Famine had come upon the country – the laws the landlords made gave them the right of exacting any rent that they please, of seizing the food upon which the tenant is to rely for his existence in satisfaction of that rent and finally in driving the tenant from his holding if he fails or is unable to pay this rent (cheers)”.
The meeting ended with a resolution “the eviction of occupiers of land for non-payment of rent arbitrarily fixed by the landlord is unjust, subversive of the true interests of the country and calls for the emphatic condemnation of all lovers of justice,” according to the report.
