Some Irish 'Planters'

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 40, Issue 40, 1 October 1903, Page 29

Some Irish ' Planters '

in . l nsh ,\ andlords in House of Lords (says the 'Daily News') cannot be blamed for entertaininV a £ellow-*eeling for the < planters ' who are in SplticS of evicted ho dings m Ireland. A great many of them are 'planters,' owe everything to ancestral 'planters ' who took possession of their holdings in days ' long past but never forgotten in Ireland. A remarkable case in point is presented by the Earl of Westmeath, who has just taken up the cudgels for the ' planters ' with especial vigor The first Karl of Westmeath was himself a planter, so notorious that some of his adventures in the acquisition of Irish estates may not be without interest at the moment. Nugent, who became the first Earl of Westmeath, got a Royal decree in 1567 authorising him to exterminate the O'Mores of Leix and Ofialv -which the amiable Qaeen Mary had renamed King's a . ,Sfe een f omties > after sending a large number of the O More's to violent deaths. Nugent, history records proceeded with great energy to exterminate the O'Mores and was rewarded with large tracts of forfeited land In making over to him estates taken from other people a .slight mistake occurred ; the lands of the O'Farrell's Longford were included, though they had not been •letted^ The O"Farrells ,of that day had no more inclination to submit to an injustice than the living represent aJtiive of that family, who sits for North Loneford m the House of Commons, has to submit to landlord encroachments. But Nugent, though he had no title to the O'Farrell country, insisted on ' grabbing ' it The Lord Salisbury of that time would not allow it, and declared that the O'Farrells were as good subjects as the Nugents any day. Whereupon this gentle grabber went into rebellion. After many adventures in prison and in the field Nugent, afterwards Earl of Westmeath, and direct ancestor of the present peer became a wanderer in the bogs of Ireland, clad only in ' a mantle and trousers-. ' But he was ultimately received into favor, was made an Earl by James 1., and got other lands to compensate him for his disappointment over the O'Farrell patrimony. Thus- the Westmeath estates came into existence. If any of the O'Mores of Leix and Oftaly still live in that part of the country— as- doubui/coc tuey u.o, .or the Irish at the worst of Times managed to escape e.-oirmi nation— they may now have the satisfaction of regaining some of the land of iheir fatheis through the aid of Saxon gold.