HC Deb 10 March 1881 vol 259 cc735-6
MR. MONTAGU SCOTT

asked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, If it is a fact that on Saturday the 26th of February, a number of men entered on the land of a tenant in the county of Longford who had been served with an ejectment, and with forty ploughs ploughed up all the grass land on the holding, so as to leave it nearly worthless for some time to the landowner?

LORD ARTHUR HILL

asked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether some time since a tenant on the Carrick-boy Estate, County Longford, was served with a writ of ejectment; whether, with his sanction, on Saturday the 28th February, a party of men entered his holding and ploughed up his grass land; and, whether the ploughs on that occasion numbered about forty?

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)

Sir, I have received reports from the Constabulary authorities in reference to tins matter, from which I find that a tenant in the Carrickboy district, in the county of Longford, who has recently been served with an ejectment process, has had, on two or three days last week, from 6 to 13 ploughs each day ploughing up a few fields for the purpose of setting the land in conacre in order to obtain money to pay his rent and stave off eviction. The fields in question, however, were not grazing land, but tillage, and have been used for similar purposes for a number of years. The ploughing, too, was done under the eye of the land bailiff. I presume this must be the case referred to in the Question, as it is the only one that has come to the knowledge of the local constabulary.