BYGONE DAYS: Threatening letter to Lord O’Neill is condemned by tenantry

The News Letter reported: “It being market day, the attendance was, of course, very large, the room [in the courthouse] being crowded.”

The chairman for the meeting was Mr John Butler of Randalstown who said: “By the placards which have been posted through the district that we are gathered today to express our indignation to the threatening letter received by his lordship.”

He continued: “At the present time there is an excitement prevailing amongst the tenant-farmers of Ireland that has not been equalled in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, and it has to be acknowledged that in that excitement there has cropped up actions which every right-minded man must deplore.”

Mr Butler added: “I say today, fearlessly and faithfully, that in the very depths of my soul that I sympathise heartily with Lord O’Neill in the annoyance which this document must have caused him. The same feelings, I am sure, pervade the heart of every individual present; and standing here as one of his lordship’s tenants, and amongst so many of his tenantry, I say that your sentiments and feelings with regards to him are separated wide as the poles from the sentiments expressed in that threatening letter.”

He continued: “I will further add that we are prepared to protect his lordship with our lives from anyone who might dare to injure a hair on his head. Those are the feelings with which we have come here today.”

Mr Hugh John Hill then moved the following series of resolutions “in globo”: “That we hereby express publicly our disapprobation of the sending of threatening letters to landlords in connection to the land agitation, and repudiate emphatically the insinuation that we, the tenants on the Shane’s Castle estates, have any knowledge of or sympathy with the writer of the letter received by Lord O’Neill, either as instigators or otherwise.”

The next resolution stated: “That we regret such a state of matters should exist between landlords and tenants as would allow it to be even insinuated that such a letter could have its origin either among the tenants or at their instigation.”

The the third resolution stated: “That we hereby call on Lord O’Neill to reconsider his position with regard to the rent question, which we state positively to be a cause of universal grievance over his entire property, requiring to be dealt with, not in individual cases, but as a whole, and express our surprise that his lordship should think the rents are fair in the midst of such universal agricultural depression.”

The fourth resolution read: “That, seeing we have legal claims to meet as well as Lord O’Neill, and finding it impossible to do so under existing circumstances, we cannot see our way, injustice to ourselves, to our families, and to others having legal claims upon us, to pay our present rents without a substantial reduction.”

Mr McFadden, the secretary of Lord O’Neill’s tenants, seconded the resolutions presented that day in “a vigorous speech”. He condemned the practice of sending letters generally, but more particularly he condemned the sending of a threatening letter to Lord O’Neill.

He asked of the meeting: “What has his lordship done that such a document should be sent to him? If he refused to comply with our request for a reduction of rent, was that any reason why we should send a threatening letter? We as farmers repudiate the idea of sending threatening letters, or to stooping to engage in such low grovelling work. The letter is now in the hands of the constabulary, and I trust that the letter will be discovered. We do not want such low trickery for the advancement of our cause, as it is one founded on justice, and does not require such a thing.”

Mr McFadden continued: “With respect to the land question, we are not here to ask for anything which is not our own; we only want justice done, and that that the interest that has been created by our fathers will be protected. We have no reason to emigrate because we have a right to be protected by the government and we now demand from them to preserve our interest in the soil.”