The Land-War In Ireland (1870) Part 21

CHAPTER XXII.

BELFAST AND PERPETUITY.

Belfast, not being blessed with a cathedral like Armagh and Derry, is not called a 'city.' It is only a 'town;' but it is the capital of Ulster, and surpa.s.ses all other places in Ireland in the rapidity of its progress and in its prosperity. It can boast but little of its antiquity. There is probably not a house in the borough more than 150 years old. The place is first noticed by history in 1178, merely as the site of a fort of the O'Neills, which was destroyed by John De Courcy. It was only a poor village at the time of Bruce's invasion, in 1315, though Spencer erroneously calls it 'a very good town.' It was so insignificant in 1586 that Holinshed does not mention it among the towns and havens of Down and Antrim. Whatever town existed there had been destroyed by the Earl of Kildare when lord-deputy. In 1552 it was repaired and garrisoned, and shortly after it was granted by the crown to Hugh O'Neill of Clandeboye. In 1571 the castle, with a large portion of territory adjoining it, was bestowed upon Sir Thomas Smith and his son. The latter was a.s.sa.s.sinated by the 'wicked, barbarous, and uncivil people;' and the former, not being able to fulfil the conditions of his tenure, the district reverted with the whole earldom of Ulster to the crown in the reign of James I. Belfast was then surrounded by extensive forests, abounding in fine timber for building. The best specimen--perhaps the only one in the kingdom--of a forest like what covered the country at that time, still exists at Shane's Castle, the magnificent demesne of Lord O'Neill, where may be seen enormous oaks decaying with age, under whose shade probably the famous Shane marshalled his gallogla.s.se.

In 1613 the castle and manor of Belfast were granted to Sir Arthur Chichester, lord-deputy, ancestor of the Marquis of Donegal, who did so much to effect the final conquest of Ulster. He may be said to be the founder of the town. From the estates of his family, in Devons.h.i.+re, and from Scotland, many families came over and made a strong settlement here. Ultimately it became a corporation sending two members to the Irish Parliament. The chief magistrate was called 'the sovereign;' and the first who held the office was Thomas Pottinger, ancestor of the celebrated Sir Henry Pottinger. In 1758 the population was 8,549; in 1821, it was 37,000; in 1831, it was 53,000; in 1841, it had increased to 75,000; in 1851, it amounted to 103,000; and the last census shows it to be 121,602. About 1,500 houses are built annually in the borough, and the present population is estimated at 150,000.

The rateable property is more than 394,000 l. The sum of 560,000 l.

has been spent on the harbour improvements, to which is to be added 250,000 l. for building new docks. I remember the quays when they were small, irregular, inconvenient, dirty, and when the channel worked its doubtful course through s.h.i.+fting ma.s.ses of liquid mud, at low water.

Now there are quays which extend in a line about a mile, covered with s.p.a.cious sheds for the protection of the goods being s.h.i.+pped and uns.h.i.+pped. There are docks of all sorts, and great s.h.i.+pbuilding establishments standing on ground created out of the floating chaos of mud. 'Year by year,' as one of its poets has said, 'Belfast is changing its aspect and overstepping its former boundaries, climbing the hill-side, skirting the river margin, and even invading the sea's ancient domain.

'Ambition's mistress of the fertile land, Shuts out the ocean and usurps the strand.'

Among the 'usurpations' is Queen's Island, a beautiful people's park, standing in the midst of the Lough. The people of Belfast have effected all these vast improvements from their own resources, without a s.h.i.+lling from the lord of the soil, without any help from Government, except a loan of 100,000 l. from the Board of Works.

Belfast is the 'linen capital' of the empire, as Manchester is the 'cotton capital.' The linen trade was fostered in its infancy there by Strafford, and encouraged by William III., as a set-off against the abolition of the woollen trade. The first spinning of flax by steam power was commenced in 1830, by the Messrs. Mulholland, who employ 2,000 hands, princ.i.p.ally females. Mills have sprung up in every direction, and it is estimated that they give employment to 15,000 persons. To supply the consumption of flax, in addition to the home produce, about 50,000 tons are imported every year. Linen is the staple manufacture; but industrial arts of every kind flourish, with all the usual manifestations of wealth.

We have seen in a former chapter that the people of Londonderry, vexed that the maiden city has been left so far behind her younger sister, ascribe the difference to the fact that the Belfast manufacturers were favoured with long building tenures. We hear it said often that the Marquis of Donegal gave his tenants perpetuity leases, implying that he acted very liberally in doing so. If, however, you speak to persons acquainted with the local history, they will ascribe this advantage to 'Lord Donegal's necessities.' If you ask an explanation of this phrase, you will be told that towards the end of last century, and later, Lord Donegal was obliged to adopt extraordinary methods for raising money, and that the perpetuity leases in question were purchased, and at a very high rate too. You will further learn that the tenants were compelled to take the leases, and pay heavy fines for them in lump sums, and that if unable to produce the money they were evicted, and their farms were given to others who were able to pay. It is alleged that his agent got leases in blank, ready to be filled up when the cash was forthcoming, and that all the cash did not reach the landlord's hands. At any rate, attempts have been made to break some of the leases. There has been long pending litigation on the subject.

Whatever may be the defects of t.i.tle on the part of the landlord, the tenant must suffer. Dr. Hanc.o.c.k alludes to this fact in his first report. Referring to Sir John Romilly's Leasing Powers Bill, he says:--

'The details of these Bills it is not necessary now to refer to; but there was one principle provided for in them which has been neglected in subsequent measures. In the ordinary course of business a tenant does not investigate his landlord's t.i.tle; the cost of doing so would be nearly always too great; besides, the landlord would not think of consenting to the investigation on every occasion of granting a lease.

It follows from this that it is a great hards.h.i.+p, if a flaw should be discovered in a landlord's t.i.tle, that leases granted before the tenants had any notice of the litigation should be bad. Take the case of the estate which the late Duke of Wellington and Mr.

Leslie recovered from Lord Dungannon after he had been for years in possession; or the case which is now pending for so many years between the Marquis of Donegal and Viscount Templemore. Is it not a great hards.h.i.+p that leases which tenants took, trusting in the t.i.tle of Lord Dungannon or Viscount Templemore, who were then visible owners of great estates, should afterwards turn out to be worthless on some point of law in t.i.tle-deeds which they never had the opportunity of seeing; and which may be so subtle as to take Courts of Law years to decide?'

Dr. Hanc.o.c.k says the principle that in such cases the tenant should be protected, was neglected in subsequent measures. Now, what must the tenants think of legislation that subjects them to be robbed of their dearly-bought leases because of flaws, frauds or blunders with which they could have nothing to do? The leases granted to the tenants of Lord Donegal, however, in Belfast and the neighbourhood were generally valid, and to these perpetuities we must undoubtedly ascribe the existence of a middle cla.s.s of remarkable independence of character, and the acc.u.mulation of capital for manufactures and commerce. Had Lord Donegal been able to hold the town in a state of tutelage and dependence--had he been an 'improving landlord' of the modern type, with an agent like Mr. Trench, so vigilant and curious that a dog could not bark on the estate without his knowledge and consent, Belfast might have been far behind Derry to-day--as stationary as Bangor, Hillsborough, Antrim, or Randalstown. Under such paternal care as Mr. Trench bestows upon tenants, with his omnipresent surveillance, there could be no manly self-reliance, no freedom of speech or action, no enterprise. The agent would take care that no interests should grow up on the estate, which his chief could not control or knock down. It is not likely that Lord Donegal would have suffered the landscape to be spoiled, the atmosphere of the deer park and gardens to be darkened and tainted by the smoke of factory chimneys, which could add nothing to his rental, while crowding around him the race which his great progenitor did so much to extirpate. So Belfast may well be thankful that the Marquis of Donegal, for some generations, could not afford to be 'an improving landlord,' fond of paternal intermeddling with other people's affairs, playing the part of Providence to an inferior race.

But there is one memorable fact connected with those perpetuity leases which applies more immediately to our purpose. The tenants who were evicted to make way for the men who had money to advance to the lord of the soil, feeling themselves seriously aggrieved, formed the first of the more modern agrarian combinations under the t.i.tle of 'the Hearts of Oak;' which continued for a long time to disturb the peace in Antrim and Down. The farms being extensively turned into pasture by the landlords and large graziers, there was no employment for the houseless wanderers, no provision of any kind for their support.

They consequently had no respect for the rights of property, in the vindication of which their homes had been demolished and their families sacrificed, because they were not able to purchase fixity of tenure.

It was, however, very fortunate for Belfast that the landlord was obliged to sell it; that the head of the great house founded by the conqueror of Ulster, enriched with territory so vast, should have been under the necessity of giving a perpetual property in the soil to some of the sons of industry. By that simple concession he did more to advance the prosperity of the town, than could have been accomplished by centuries of fostering care, under the shadow of feudalism. Belfast shows, on a grand scale, what might be done on many an estate in Ireland, in many a town and village where the people are pining away in hopeless misery, if the iron bonds of primogeniture and entail which now cramp landed property were struck off. The Greek philosopher declared that if he had a standing-place he could move the earth. Give to capital the ground of perpetuity of tenure, whereon to plant its machinery, and it will soon lift this island from the slough of despond. Then may it be said more truly than Grattan said it in 1782, that Ireland had got nearer to the sun.

CHAPTER XXIII.

LEASE-BREAKING--GEAs.h.i.+LL.

The history of the Manor of Geas.h.i.+ll in the King's County furnishes another instructive ill.u.s.tration of the land question and of the effect upon the people of the system of management, under the new school of agents, of which Mr. Steuart Trench may be regarded as the brightest ornament, if not the apostle. The epoch was favourable for his mission, and he was the man for the epoch; he had been quietly training himself for the restoration of disordered estates, and the critical emergencies of the times thrust him into the front rank of social reformers. When he describes the wonderful revolutions wrought by his instrumentality, the whirlwinds on which he rode, the storms which he directed and quelled, the chaos out of which he evoked order, he a.s.sumes that the hurricane and the chaos were the normal state of things. A mysterious pestilence had blighted the princ.i.p.al food of the people for two or three years, and brought on a desolating famine.

Millions perished by that visitation chiefly because the legislature had persistently refused up to that period to make any provision for the Irish poor such as it had made centuries before for the English poor, and because no care had been taken to distribute the population over the waste lands which their labour would have reclaimed and fertilized; or to improve their position, so that they might not be wholly dependent on one sort of food, and that the most precarious and perishable. Mr. Sadler, in his work on Population, had proved that, even in the case of Ireland before the famine, there was really no 'surplus population;' that if the resources of the country had been developed by a wise Government, sympathising with the people, the text which he adopted would have been applicable there: 'Dwell in the land, and verily ye shall be fed.' There was hasty legislation to meet the emergency, but in all the haste, the heartless economists found time to devise clauses and provisions, by means of which, when the small farmers had consumed all their stock to keep their families alive, they were compelled to relinquish their holdings in order to get food for their famis.h.i.+ng children. They must submit to the workhouse test, they must not hold more than a quarter of an acre of land, if they would get relief. Under the dire instigation of hunger, in the stupor and recklessness of their misery, they accepted any terms the landlords chose to impose, and so whole villages disappeared from the landscape, swept off with the besom of destruction.

The political economists (all the new school of land-agents are rigid political economists), taught by their prophet Malthus, ascribed the famine and every other social evil to surplus population, and to the incurably lazy and thriftless habits of the Celtic race. According to them the potato blight had only hastened an inevitable catastrophe.

Therefore they set to work with all their agencies and all their might to get rid of the too prolific race, and to supplant the native cultivators by British settlers and wealthy graziers.

This has been done ever since by a quiet and gradual process, steadily, systematically, inexorably, propelled by many powerful tendencies of the age, and checked only by a.s.sa.s.sination. What are the agrarian outrages which have become so terribly rife of late, but the desperate struggles of a doomed race to break the instruments which pluck them out of their native soil? A generation of instruction in the national schools and a generation of intercourse with the free citizens of the United States, who call no man 'master' under heaven--have taught them that it is an enormous iniquity to sacrifice humanity to property, to make the happiness, the freedom, the very existence of human beings, secondary to the arbitrary power and self-interest of a small cla.s.s called landlords. They regard the 'improving landlord' system as nothing but a legal and civilised continuation of the barbarous policy of extermination by fire and sword which we have seen pursued so ruthlessly in the seventeenth century. It is still the land-war, conducted according to modern tactics, aiming with deadly effect at the same object, the slow but sure destruction of a nuisance called the 'Celtic race.' This may be a delusion on their part; but it is the deep-rooted conviction of priests and people, and hence the utter inadequacy of any enactment which will not render such a policy impossible, by making the tenure of the occupiers independent of the will of the landlords. Until such time the peasantry will continue to offer a b.l.o.o.d.y resistance to the legal attempts to crush them out of the country.

In this self-defensive war, they cannot cope with the armed power of England in the open field; and they are driven upon the criminal resource of the oppressed in all ages and all lands--secret combination and a.s.sa.s.sination. For this crime they feel no remorse; first, because it is _war_--just as the soldier feels no remorse for killing the enemy in a battle; and, secondly, because their conquerors, and the successors of those conquerors, have taught them too well by repeated examples the terrible lesson of making light of human life. Poor ignorant creatures, they cannot see that, while the most ill.u.s.trious n.o.blemen in England won applause and honours by shooting down Irish women and children like seals or otters, the survivors of the murdered people should be execrated as cruel, barbarous, and infamous for shooting the men that pull down the rooftrees over the heads of their helpless families and trample upon their household G.o.ds. These convictions of theirs are very revolting to our feelings, but they are facts; and as facts the legislature must deal with them. If there be a people, otherwise singularly free from crime, who regard the a.s.sa.s.sination of the members of a certain cla.s.s with indifference, or approbation, the phenomenon is one which political philosophy ought to be able to explain, and one which cannot be got rid of by suspending the const.i.tution and bringing railing accusations against the nation.

Mr. Trench speaks with something like contempt or pity of 'good landlords,' a cla.s.s which he contradistinguishes from 'improving landlords.' But it should be remembered that by this last phrase he always means agents of the Trench stamp. For he observes that the landlord himself cannot possibly do much more than authorize his agent to do what he thinks best; and it is rather an advantage that the proprietor should be an absentee, otherwise his good nature might prompt him to interrupt the work of improvement. Now there is this to be said of the good landlords, who may be counted by hundreds, and who are found in all the counties of Ireland. Their estates are free from the 'poetic turbulence' in which Mr. Trench is the 'stormy petrel.'

They preserved their tenants through the years of famine, and have them still on their estates. Nor should the fact be omitted that among those good landlords, who abhor the idea of evicting their tenants, are to be found the lineal descendants of some of the most cruel exterminators of the seventeenth century. Their goodness has completely obliterated, among their people, the bitter memories of the past. The present race of Celts would die for the men whose ancestors shot down their forefathers as vermin. But the improving landlords run their ploughshares through the ashes of old animosities, turning up embers which the winds of agitation blow into flames. We seldom hear of Ribbonism till the improving agent comes upon the scene, warring against natural rights, warring against the natural affections, warring against humanity, warring against the soul.

These remarks bring us to the case of the barony of Geas.h.i.+ll, the estate of Lord Digby, to which Mr. Trench became agent in 1857. Lord Digby desired to obtain his services, but he did not communicate his desire to Mr. Trench himself, though nothing would seem easier. It was first conveyed by Lieut.-General Porter, the confidential friend of Lord Digby, and next by Mr. Brewster, afterwards Lord Chancellor of Ireland. When the police received a notice that the new landlord of Geas.h.i.+ll would certainly meet with a 'b.l.o.o.d.y death' if he persisted in his threatened dealings with the tenants, there was no more time for diplomatic delicacy in approaching Mr. Trench. The landlord's extremity is Mr. Trench's opportunity. When leases are to be broken, when independent rights are to be extinguished, or 'contracted away,'

when an overcrowded estate is to be thinned at the least possible cost to the owner, when a rebellious tenantry are to be subdued, and Ribbonmen are to be banished or hanged, Mr. Trench is the man to do the work of improvement. He admits that he never had before him an uglier job than this at Geas.h.i.+ll, and he had the worst apprehensions as to the danger of the enterprise.

It was nothing less than to break 120 leases, which had been granted from time to time by the late Lord Digby during the sixty years that he had enjoyed the property. The value of these leases was 30,600 l., for the terms unexpired after his death. Among those 120 leaseholders were the descendants of English settlers, gentlemen farmers, one of them a magistrate, and a number of substantial yeomen, the sort of men the country so much wanted to form an independent middle cla.s.s. But to an 'improving landlord,' the existence of such a cla.s.s on his estate is intolerable. At all hazards they must be made tenants-at-will, and brought completely under his control.

They had built houses and planted trees; they had reclaimed the deep bog and converted it into good arable land. They had employed the peasantry, and given them plots of ground, and, more than all, they had allowed a number of families to squat on bits of bog by the roadside, where they lived as well as they could; working when there was a demand for labour, cutting turf and selling it in the neighbouring town of Tullamore, and perhaps carrying on some little dealings. At all events they had survived the famine; and there they were in 1857 with their huts standing on their 'estates,' for they had paid no rent for twenty years, and they had as good a t.i.tle in law as Lord Digby himself. Mr. Trench seems to have been horrified at not finding the names of these householders in the rent-books of the estate! The idea!--that there should be within the four corners of the King's County, even on the bog of Allen, a number of natives holding land, without a landlord! It was monstrous. But as they could not be evicted for non-t.i.tle, they were all severally tempted by the offer of money, in sums varying from 5 l. to 20 l. each, to sell their freeholds to the landlord. Pity they were not preserved as a remnant of the antediluvian period, ere the ancient tenures were merged in floods of blood. Like a bit of primitive forest, they would be more interesting to some minds than the finest modern plantation.

It was not so easy to deal with the 120 leaseholders. To what extent they had improved their farms before they got the leases, Mr. Trench does not say. But as the absentee landlord had done nothing, and spent nothing, whatever increase to the value had been made was undoubtedly the work of the tenants; and after the leases were obtained, they would naturally feel more confidence in the investment of their savings in the land. However that may be, a professional man, employed by Lord Digby, estimated the value over and above the reserved rent at 30,600 l., which sum the new landlord proposed to put into his own pocket, by increasing the rent one-third. The plea for this sweeping confiscation was, that the late Lord Digby, cousin to the present, had only a life interest in the Irish estate, and therefore, the leases were all illegal and worthless. Accordingly the new lord commenced proceedings to evict the whole of the tenantry for non-t.i.tle. They were astounded. They held meetings; they deliberated; they appealed to the landlord; they appealed to the executors of the late peer, who had large estates in England, and died worth a million sterling in the funds, all of which he willed away from the heir of his t.i.tle and Irish estates. Says Mr. Trench:--

'It may readily be supposed that circ.u.mstances so peculiar as these created considerable anxiety in the district. The tenantry, _many_ of them large and respectable land-holders, now learned, for the first time, that their leases were good for nothing in law. They had been duly 'signed, sealed, and delivered' to them under a full belief on their part that the contract was not only just and honourable, but also perfectly legal; and their feelings may be imagined when they found that they were suddenly threatened with a total loss of the property which they had always looked upon as secure.'[1]

[Footnote 1: 'Realities of Irish Life,' p.314.]

Pending the ejectment proceedings, they were knocked about from post to pillar, without getting any satisfaction. The landlord referred them to the executors, although he knew well they had no legal claim on them whatever, and that to legal claims only could they pay any attention. The executors again referred them to their landlord, who was determined to break the leases, come what would. Now, if the Irish law regulating the relations of landlord and tenant were based upon justice and equity, the wrong done by the late earl, if any, was a wrong for which the tenants should in no way be held responsible. The wrong was done to the heir-at-law. To him, and not to the tenants, compensation should have been made by the executors. And after all, it was really to him that the money was advanced to buy up the leases, in order to save him from a.s.sa.s.sination, for the tenants had no legal claim upon them.

The natural, proper, and honest course, then, for the landlord, was to have kept the 30,600 l. as compensation to himself for the mistake of his predecessor, and to let the leases stand. If he considered the peace of the country, if he wished to inspire in the minds of the people respect for the rights of property, or confidence in the Government, he would not have adopted the desperate course of breaking 120 contracts, kindling the flames of agitation, and planting Ribbon lodges all over a district hitherto peaceful and tranquil. But he was bent on crus.h.i.+ng the independent yeomanry into the abject condition of tenants-at-will. To carry out this purpose, Mr. Trench was indispensable. He knew how to tame the wild Irish. And Mr. Trench was equal to the occasion. He went to reside a few weeks at Tullamore, to reconnoitre the enemy's position. He writes as if this was the first time he made acquaintance with the estate. But his own residence was in the Queen's County, not far off; and there is good reason to believe that he knew all about Geas.h.i.+ll long before; and all about every estate belonging to an English absentee in the four provinces; for he had, growing up around him, a young generation of land-agents, trained in all the arts of modern management, and one of the ablest of these, his son, Mr. T.W. Trench, became his partner in this agency.

Mr. Trench's tactics are not new, though he excels all men in their skilful application. His plan, adopted on all occasions, is to divide and conquer. Violent measures being dangerous and contrary to his own feelings, he trusts to diplomacy, dealing with individuals, taken separately into a private room, where his irresistible personal fascination invariably brings matters to a satisfactory issue.

In this case, he went over to the English executors, and persuaded them to advance the 30,600 l. to be distributed among the tenants, under the guarantee of Lord Digby that this sum would cover all possible claims. Thus provided with funds, he summoned the tenants, not all, but ten of the most influential, to meet him at Geas.h.i.+ll. He left this meeting, purposely, to the last day and the last hour, as a piece of generals.h.i.+p. He says:--

'They appeared puzzled and anxious, and very uncertain what to do. At length one of them proposed that they should do nothing until they had had an opportunity of consulting the remainder of the leaseholders, of whom there were upwards of 120 upon the estate.

'"No," replied I, "you must come to a decision now; there is a messenger at the door on horseback, to ride to the telegraph station at Portarlington to stop the English witnesses coming over. This must be done within an hour, or they will start for Ireland, and _then_ it will be out of my power to stop the lawsuit. You must determine _now_, each man for himself, or the lawsuit must go on."

'"Will you state the amount of money you will give to each of us?"

asked one of the party.

'"Certainly," replied I, "if you will _each come separately with me into another room_."

'They did so. I named to each an amount something less than the sum set down by the notary, partly as a reserve, lest any tenants holding under these leaseholders should afterwards require to be paid, and partly lest it might be supposed we were yielding to a legal claim already granted. After a little consideration, they all severally signed the consent for judgment.'

The other leaseholders followed. The leases were all surrendered, and the holders became tenants-at-will. I had the pleasure of meeting one of the most influential of them a short time ago at Geas.h.i.+ll--a fine tall, patriarchal-looking gentleman, the representative of one of the English settlers. He was waiting about humbly and patiently for an opportunity of speaking to the young agent, who is as courteous and kind as he is efficient. But I could not help reflecting how different would be the bearing of the tenant if he had been still in possession of his lease! His dwelling-house was not as grand as the stylish villa which the landlord has erected beside it. But every stick and stone about the place were his own property. So also were the old timber trees, which his ancestors planted. But now every stick and stone and tree belong to Lord Digby, and as such the agent exhibits them to visitors--the buildings, the gardens, the trees, the hedges, the rich pasture fields, all having such a look of comfort and independence. I asked, 'Did you ever know a place like this old home of yours to have been made by a tenant-at-will?' He answered in the negative.

The tenant on an 'improved estate' must be very careful about his speech. An agent has a hundred eyes and a hundred ears. People who seek 'favours' at the office, find it useful to be spies upon their neighbours, to detect violations of the 'rules of the estate.' It is mainly through the spy-system that Mr. Steuart Trench, according to his own avowal, won most of his victories over refractory tenants. For example, on this estate he had a woman acting as a spy at the meetings of the Ribbonmen; and he boasted that a dog could not bark at Farney without his knowledge. I refer to this matter here again for the purpose of saying that I cannot regard as an improvement of the country a system which establishes a despot on every estate, which degrades the tenant into a day-labourer, which--land being limited and scarce--subst.i.tutes the old, barbarous, pastoral system for tillage, which banishes the poor and enslaves the rich. Lord Digby levelled cottages, gardens, farms, manured the land, got an enormous crop, which in one year paid all the expenses; and then laid out the land in vast tracts of pasture, for which he gets from 30 s. to 40 s. an acre.

That is improvement for _him_, but not for the people, not for the country, not for the state, not for the Queen. It may crush Ribbonism.

But for every Ribbonman crushed, a hundred Fenians spring up; and disaffection becomes not a mere local plague, but an endemic. Mr.

Trench gives a significant hint to other landlords to follow the example of Lord Digby, a.s.suring them that it will '_pay_.'

A still more flagrant case of lease-breaking occurred some years ago in the county of Galway. Dr. Hanc.o.c.k has put the facts of this case before the Government in his recent report:--

'The plaintiff was the Rev. Dr. O'Fay, parish priest of Craughwell, in the county of Galway, and the defendant the landlord on whose estate the priest resided. About ten years ago the priest was induced to take a farm that had been held by a former parish priest; the previous proprietor, the father of the defendant, promising a lease for three lives, or thirty-one years. After the priest entered into possession the landlord ascertained that he could not fulfil his promise.

'As he did not possess such a power under the terms of the estate settlement, he offered, instead, a lease for the priest's own life, and 20 l. to aid in building a house. The priest continued in possession of the farm, and paid the rent agreed on, thus, as he alleged, accepting the arrangement proposed. He was on excellent terms with the landlord, and expended 70 l. in permanent improvements, and did not ask for the 20 l. which the landlord had promised. In 1854 the landlord died, and his son, the defendant, succeeded to the property.

He gave notice to all his yearly tenants of an intention to raise their rents. The priest claimed to have a promise of a lease, and the agent of the property, during the landlord's absence abroad, admitted this claim, and did not raise the rent. The landlord said he had no notice of his father's promise; he, however, allowed the priest to remain in possession, and the priest expended 400 l. in buildings, on the faith that he would not be disturbed. A dispute subsequently arose about trespa.s.s, and the fences on the boundary between the priest's farm and some land in the possession of the landlord. The landlord served notice to quit, and brought an ejectment. After some delay judgment was given in his favour, subject to an application to the Court of Chancery to compel him to fulfil his father's promise of a lease.'