HC Deb 12 June 1913 vol 53 cc1793-4W
Captain CRAIG

asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether It has received a report of the action of a mob in the county Leitrim which assembled, on the 16th May, on the Killaturk grazing farm and cut down wire fences which had been erected by the Estates Commissioners; whether this outrage is the result of the Estates Commissioners having given a portion of the farm to a local lady; and whether the Estates Commissioners will replace the fence and insist on the right of the lady in question to hold her land?

Mr. BIRRELL

The Estates Commissioners inform me that the owner, at their request, arranged to reinstate Mrs. O'Reilly in portion of the lands in question. The sale is not yet complete, and no fences have been erected by the Commissioners. Thomas Reilly has since applied for reinstatement in a portion of these lands as the son of an evicted tenant, and the whole question of the division of the lands will be further considered by the Commissioners, The police authorities inform me that on the night of the 17th May a crowd of people assembled on the farm referred to and pulled down a wire fence which had been erected by Mrs. O'Reilly on the lands proposed to be assigned to her. Eleven persons have been arrested, and are now on bail awaiting trial on a charge of unlawful assembly and malicious damage.