THE GWEEDORE TENANTS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 47, 21 March 1884, Page 19

THE GWEEDORE TENANTS.

(Dublin Freeman, January 26.) Three is no more painful page in the social history of Ireland than that of the Gweedore tenants. The seed for their poor holdings supplied by charity ; their children kept from starvation by the free breakfasts at the schools organised by that good lady of truly practical philanthropy, Mrs. Power-Lalor ; the landlords coming down on them for accumulated rent which, though it is small, they are unable to pay withoul selling any little stock they haye — the whole story is a harrowing one of human suffering. The County Court Judge at Lifford on Friday last, even while he granted decrees against them, expressed the opinion that they were in great distress. The brave and devoted priest, Father M'Fadden who has lived in their service for over ten years and who has appealed with success for them to the generous everywhere sympathising with their sufferings, stated in Court on Friday that he will not appeal to again. Not for an instant can the allegation stand against them that they are parties to a combination against rent. There is no combination. There is not as much as a branch of the National League in the place. The presence of the Most Eeverend Bishop of the diocese in the court at Lifford on Thursday shows how he who would not and could not for an instant be party to any false pretences on the part of the tenants, or exaggeration of their wretched condition by the parish priest, sympathises with their case, and countenances their claim. Their plea is that they impoverished themselves in trying to take advantage of the Arrears Act. The very landlords who now seek to obtain the fruit of the seed supplied by charity to them joined in the appeal for that chatity. The donors certainly never intended that Mr. Wybrant Olpherts, Captain Hill, or Mr. Nixon should be the gainers by that charity. The chief part of the crop of last harvest was the fruit of seed given in charity. What remains of it is not only insufficient to meet the demand of two j ears' rent, but we are told will not be enough even for the seed of the ensuing spring. The evidence on the trials shows the sort of stock the poor people have. One man had two mountain sheep, another four, and so on. The tenants have done nothing dishonest. They have simply urged upon their landlords the justice and the benefit of not exacting more than one year's rent for the present year, and that a reduction of this even would be fair. The answers they got were those ejectments. Donegal has been the field of many evictions, and we trust that the awful scenes are not about to be re-enacted. The decision of the judge presses especially hard upon the poor people. He has decreed the'rn for two years' rent with costs, and on condition of one year being paid on or before 11th February, a stay of execution till the Ist of June. There is no season of the year so inconvenient for payments by these poor people as June. If the stay oE execution were granted till October or Ist November the harvest would be gathered in. Tbey would probably be able to pay then. As it is, the decrees bring them face to face with utter ruin, houseless and homeless ruin.