Here are some results of my researches. The particulars of these cases now first appear in print.
A man named James Dore, who keeps a public-house in Bridge Street, Newcastlewest--I can vouch for his beer--also held a small farm of forty-nine acres from the Earl of Devon, for which he paid the modest rent of £11 10s. per annum--the land maintaining sixteen cows and calves, which, on the usual local computation of £10 profit on each cow, would leave a gain of £148 10s.--not a bad investment, as Irish farming goes. So it was considered, and when the tenant-right was announced as for sale by auction, two cousins of Dore, who held farms contiguous, agreed to jointly bid for the tenant-right, and having secured the land, to arrange its partition between themselves. They went to £400, but this was not regarded as enough, and the tenant-right was for a specified time held over for purchase by private agreement. A farmer named William Quirke offered £590, which was accepted, and the money paid. After this, the two cousins came forward and said they would purchase the tenant-right, offering £40 more than Quirke had paid. They were told that they were too late, and the Earl's agent (Mr. Curling) said nothing could now be done. This was on the 13th of the present month of April. On the 14th, Mr. James Cooke, Lord Devon's bailiff, was seen showing the purchaser Quirke over the newly-acquired holding. Poor Quirke little knew what was at that moment hanging over him. He had not long to wait. The dastard demon of moonlight ruffianism was on his track.
Quirke had a son aged fourteen years, but looking two years younger, a simple peasant lad, who cannot have injured his country very much. He was tending a cow, which required watching, his father and mother taking their rest while the child sat out the lonely hours in the cowhouse. He heard something, and listened with all his ears. Not voices, but a subdued whispering. It was the dead hour of night, two or half-past two, and the boy was frightened. The place is lonely, seven miles or more from Newcastlewest, and up towards the mountains. He listened and listened, and again heard the mysterious sounds. He says he "thought it was the fairies." He stole from the byre and went to the house. A horrible dread had crept over him, and father and mother were there. As he opened the door a terrible blow from behind struck him down. He was not stunned, though felled by the butt-end of a gun. They beat and kicked him as he lay. He gave an anguished cry. The mother heard and recognised her boy's voice, and, waking the father, said "Go down, they're killing my lad." The old man, for he is an old man, went down the stairs naked and unarmed. The foul marauders met him half-way up, and served him as they had served the boy, throwing him down, kicking him, and beating him with butt-ends of guns; with one terrible blow breaking three of his ribs; and saying, "Give it up, give it up." He said he would "give it up"; promised by all he held sacred, begged hard for his life, and implored them at least to spare the young lad. Their reply to this was to fire a charge of shot into the boy's legs, a portion of the charge entering the limbs of an old woman--his grandmother, I think--who was feebly trying to shield the lad. This was such excellent sport that more was thought expedient. A charge of shot was fired into the father's legs, and as one knee-joint is injured, the elder Quirke's condition is precarious even without his broken ribs and other injuries. The cowardly hounds then left, in their horrid disguise adding a new terror to the lonely night. The evening's entertainment was not yet over. They crossed a couple of fields to a house where dwelt Quirke's married son. They burst open the door of his cottage and dragged the young fellow--he is about twenty-five--from his bed, beating him sorely, and in the presence of his wife firing a charge of shot into his legs. Then they went home, each man to his virtuous couch, to dream fair dreams of the coming Paradise, when they and their kind may work their own sweet will, free from the fear of a hireling constabulary, and under the ægis of a truly national senate, given to a grateful country by a Grand Old Man.