Local Landlords

transcribed at

Local Landlords  [duchas:4993188]

The Local Landlords of this district in former times were - Lord Granard, Lord Douglas and Kingharman and also Gailbraith. Lord Granard lived at Newtownforbes and the others lived in England. The Granard family were settled in the district from the times of the Plantation and they have a grand castle at Newtownforbes and sometimes live there at present. The present Lord Granard is a catholic and his wife is a protestant from America. All his children are Catholics and are very popular with the people, they are very kind to the people. Some of them were looked upon as a fairly good Landlord and others bad. Long ago the people did not like the Lndlords because they were very hard on them. They had to pay very high rents for their lands and they were not able to bare this rent and then they were evicted from their homes. Lord Granard was the Landlord for this district and

Local Landlords  [duchas:4993189]

he sent an army of men to Drumlish to evict the people who refused to pay the rents of their farms on January 10th in the year 1881.
The following is a list of people who were to be evicted. From the Hill of Drumlish, John Quinn Dan Grimes and John Mc Glynn. From Mill road Drumlish, James Rogers, James Gill and pat Gourdan. From Cloonmacart Pat Mc Kenna. From Cloonaugh Peter Healy and a good many others from other surrounding districts. Alic Piercewell was an agent for Colonel Douglas for dividing the bogs, for Cloonmacart, Bawn Cloonaugh and Kilnashee, he divided Cloonaugh and Bawn bogs on the tenants of the four townlands. He was a very hard man he was fond of evicting people and he evicted a lot of people. he would make the young boys go and do his work for nothing and they would only get a piece of cold porridge for their dinner.

 John Mollaghan.

This was told to me by John Reilly, Cloonmacart, Drumlish  aged 69 years.     March 23 rd 1938.