Vandeleur Evictions

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moc66
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Vandeleur Evictions

Post by moc66 » Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:33 pm

Plan of campaign in 1880's by the land league to secure freedom of tenure was activated in quite a few places in Co Clare. A number of tenants of the Vandeluer Estate in the Moyasta area took part and for the non payement of rents were duly evicted. Though not without a fight as this and other reports from The Freeman's Journal and other papers and journals of the time show. The campaign in Moyasta and what happened to the particpants as gone into local folklore and suffice to say the desendants of those campaigners live, work and farm in Moyasta and surrounding townlands to this day.
moc66
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Freemans Journal wed august 1888.doc
plan of campaign in 1880's by the land league to secure freedom of tenure was activated in quite a few places in Co Clare.
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smcarberry
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Re: Vandeleur Evictions

Post by smcarberry » Sat Aug 23, 2008 12:58 pm

Word of the Vandeleur evictions had reached upstate New York, as evidenced in this
brief article appearing on 14 Apr 1888 in The Oswego Palladium newspaper:

"Arrangements have been made to evict 200 tenants of the Vandeleur estate in county Clare."

Going back further in time, in the 9 Apr 1851 edition of The Daily News (a London publication, I believe), this was reported as the reaction of a Mr. Reynolds to hearing Vandeleur described as a "benevolent landlord, overflowing with the milk of kindness":

"He (Mr. Reynolds) had, however, the evidence of a blue-book on the subject. From that book, he found in Kilrush Union within a short period prior to 1850 there had been 1,951 families whose houses had been levelled, 408 families who had been unhoused, and 341 families who had been admitted as care takers. The gross number who had been evicted, had their houses levelled, or been adopted as caretakers, was 2,359, representing a population of 12,000 persons. He found also that there had been evicted from Col. Vandeleur's property 185 families, representing a population of 1,001 persons. On the list from which he (Mr. Reynolds) had read the name of Mr. Vandeleur would be found many of the guardians of Kilrush Union, many agents of guardians, may drivers of guardians, and many bailiffs of guardians. He (Mr. Reynolds) was ashamed to say they were all Irish."

posted by Sharon Carberry

Paddy Casey
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Vandeleur Evictions - photographs

Post by Paddy Casey » Sat Aug 23, 2008 4:35 pm

See also

http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/librar ... bition.htm

and

http://foto.clarelibrary.ie/fotoweb/Gri ... mit=Search... and subsequent pages

for a fascinating set of photos of the 1888 evictions. A tip: when looking at the photos take a moment to check out the details in the background (e.g. the military waiting in the background in one of the photos). Be amazed by the depth of focus and the definition of these images taken by a photographer with 1888 equipment and a bunch of busy subjects who were preparing for violence and had other things to do than keep still and pose for the photographer. It would be interesting to know whether the photographer was using flash equipment (e.g. a magnesium tray) to freeze some of those images.

The photographer Robert French (1841-1917) was clearly very unusually skilled. He was employed by the Dublin entreprenuer William Lawrence as his chief photographer (Lawrence was not himself a photographer but a businessman). French was born in Dublin and spent some time working in the Royal Irish Constabulary, then joined Lawrence Studio, and he worked his way up as printer, artist and then assistant photographer. He took over 30,000 photographs of the "Lawrence Collection" and retired in 1914.

French must have been a bit of a maverick to go out into the country and photograph these events rather than remain in Lawrence's studio profitably photographing worthies against a background of pseudo-Greek columns surrounded by cherubs. Or maybe it was Lawrence's decision to send him out west.

We are very lucky that these images survived. In 1916 Lawrence's premises in Sackville Street were looted and burned down during the Easter Rising. Most of the portrait negatives were destroyed. The negatives of scenes around Ireland were stored in Rathmines and survived. The firm closed down in 1942 and the following year, the negatives (glass plates) were acquired by the National Library of Ireland.

Paddy

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