The chief Dublin Conservative journal, the _Evening
Mail_, on the 3rd of November, writing about the murder of Mr. Clarke,
"inclines to believe that the agrarian outrage had its origin in a
design to intimidate landlords from demanding their rents, at a season
when corn of all kinds is superabundant, and the partial failure of the
potato crop gives a pretence for not selling it. And if we recollect,"
it continues, "that the potato crop of this year far exceeded an average
one, and that corn of all kinds is so far abundant, it will be seen that
the apprehensions of a famine in that quarter are unfounded, and are
merely made the pretence for withholding the payment of rent." Such was
the language of a newspaper supposed largely to express landlord feeling
in Ireland, and supposed, too, to be the chief organ of the existing
Government, represented by Lord Heytesbury.
Later on in the month, a Protestant dignitary, Dean Hoare of Achonry,
wrote a letter to the Mansion House Committee, in which, whilst he gave
substantially the same views of the potato failure as hundreds of
others, he complained in a mild spirit of the people in his locality as
being "very slow" to adopt the methods recommended for preserving the
potatoes from decay.
Pages:
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153