Mayo history: Lucan’s ‘crowbar brigade’ terrorised tenants
By Tom Gillespie
THE Lucan connection with Castlebar is not a pleasant one, particularly in the reign of the Third Earl who carried out mass evictions during the Famine.
The tenants who were unable to pay their rents were ejected from their cabins by ‘crowbar brigades’.
Tom Higgins, in his book Through Fagan’s Gate, reprinted a report from The Connaught Telegraph on evictions that were carried out in 1848 on the orders of the Third Earl of Lucan, the landlord who owned extensive tracts of land in the Castlebar area.
The newspaper said the following evictions were carried out in the Castlebar area:
Aughadrina: The townland was cleared of 289 people, all houses were levelled.
Balloor: 53 were ejected, houses levelled, May 1, 1848.
Staball: 52 ejected, houses levelled, April 1848.
Gallowshill: 39 ejected, May 1848.
Sir William Butler, an English member of parliament, described one such eviction: ‘The sheriff, a strong force of police, and above all, the crowbar brigade were present.
‘The miserable inmates of the cabins were dragged out upon the road, the thatched roofs were torn down, the earthen walls battered by the crowbars, the screaming women, the half-naked children, the paralysed grandmother and tottering grandfather were hauled out and left to wander the roads, ending up in a makeshift shelter of wood and straw.’
No townland in the parish escaped the terror of Lucan’s ‘crowbar brigade’ in April and May 1848. Famine, death and evictions continued into 1849. The ‘crowbar brigade’ moved once again to Staball Hill with Lord Lucan himself in attendance. Only the sooty gables were left standing.
In 1848 there were 400 prisoners in Castlebar Jail, imprisoned for such crimes as ‘stealing a hen, stealing turnips, rooting potatoes or running out of the Workhouse’.
The jail was filled to capacity with vagrants who deliberately smashed windows in town in order that they might be imprisoned and fed. Vagrancy was a crime punishable with imprisonment.
In 1849 vagrants, both male and female, were stealing sheep and cattle, driving them in front of police, hoping to be caught and thrown into prison. Even stone-breaking and the treadmill were preferable to starvation and death.
At the height of the Famine, starvation or stealing food were the stark choices open to the poor, or transportation to Botany Bay, Australia.
The second earl's son, George Bingham, never visited Castlebar until, at the age of 26, he stood for election as a Member of the UK Parliament representing Mayo.
By this time, in true Bingham tradition, he was a lieutenant colonel in the army, having bought his commission as commanding officer of the 17th Lancers for £20,000. However, he found life as a soldier in peacetime very dull, so instead, he turned his intentions towards improving his father’s property in Castlebar.
In 1837, he relinquished command of his regiment and set out for Castlebar. He found that the estate was heavily in debt and that no proper accounts were being kept by his agent, St. Clair O’Malley.
In 1839, when his father died and he succeeded as Third Earl, he discharged O’Malley and set about improving his family properties. He believed that large holdings were the only solution. He began to clear small holders off his estate in great numbers, and enlarged his own personal farm in Castlebar to 5,000 acres.
The townland of Aughadrina was cleared of tenants to make a racecourse and rifle range. The townland of Drumconlon, which was around 60 fields, was converted into one large field.
His new farmyard - the old bacon factory site - buildings covered three acres of land, and he used the stones of houses from which the tenants had been evicted to build them.
His farm was stocked with 2,000 ewes, 200 dry cattle and 130 milch cows. Almost eight tons of cheese was made every year and sold for 6d per pound. There was a large acreage under corn. Butter was made in large churns, operated by horses which walked around in circles. Nearly all the farm produce was exported to England.
Lord Lucan’s policy of consolidation had a terrible effect not only on the rural areas of the parish, but also on the town, which was a market town, depending on a buoyant and prosperous hinterland.
His actions had a major bearing on the sharp drop in the population of the parish in the years following the Famine. There was a decrease of 1,110 in the population of the town between 1841 and 1851.
When the Crimean War broke out in 1853, the Third Earl rejoined the British Army. His taste for military adventure led him to serve in the Russian army in Bulgaria where he commanded a cavalry division. It was he who received from Lord Raglan the order for the charge of the light brigade at Balaclava. He was probably unjustly blamed for the disaster which ensued.
In the 1880s, the Third Earl was to find that much of the land from which he had ‘exterminated’ the inhabitants had brought him little reward, as American competition in frozen beef was making grazing an unprofitable business.
When in 1888 he died, aged 88 years, he was not a rich man. However, time had not mellowed the Third Earl in his old age. He was a stubborn as ever and refused to permit any change which might improve the town of Castlebar.
The Connaught Telegraph reported that the gentry seemed to have very little interest in the importance of the small farmer and the creation of wealth, stating: “Hunting has nothing to do with producing crops, neither has fine dinners, wine drinking, dancing, intoxication, living in great houses, riding in easy carriages, looking down with contempt on the poor, and administering injustice at Petty Sessions anything to do with producing crops.
“They set the land at the highest rate and seldom ever spend a shilling on their improvement.
“The burden of life presses heavily on multitudes in the town at present. The Christmas, which is fast approaching, to many will be unbearable.”