The Mayo Evictions of 1860

Between the Great Famine and the Land War, ideological conflict was added to the material sufferings of the poverty-stricken tenants in depressed districts such as Erris, Partry and Connemara. Gerard Moran has produced an absorbing and objective account of the clash between 'the Patriot Priest of Partry' - as he has been called by Cardinal O Fiaich - and Baron Plunket of Tuam, a harsh landlord, condemned by the 'Times of London'. Among the topics in a book which will prove compelling reading for Mayo and Galway people especially, are 'soupers', 'jumpers' and the workhouse; the Achill Mission; the Brothers, Third Order, etc.; the Party Evictions; riots and court actions at Ballinrobe and elsewhere; the 'Castlebar Settlement' (another treaty of Limerick in its way); the stand of landowners like George Henry Moore on the one hand and Sir Richard O'Donel of Newport on the other; the drift to Fenianism when non-violence appeared ineffective. Fr Lavelle was probably the most famous man ever born in the Westport area, and indeed one of Mayo's most noted sons, while the Partry Evictions, like the Maamtrasna Murders, have left an indelible mark on the folk-memory of the west of Ireland.