Among them was a man who had married the daughter of an old tenant on the estate, and so came into a holding of 12 Irish, or more than 20 statute, acres, at a rental of L18 a year.

The valuer reduced this to L14, 10s., which satisfied the tenant, and as the agent agreed to make this reduced valuation retroactive, all went as smoothly as possible for two years, when the tenant began to fall into arrears.

When the Sub-Commissioners, between 1885 and 1887, took to making sweeping reductions, the tenants who had settled freely under the recent valuation grumbled bitterly.

As one of them tersely put it to the agent, "We were a parcel of bloody fools, and you ought to have told us these Sub-Commissioners were coming!" Mr.Sweeney, the tenant by marriage already mentioned, was not content to express his particular dissatisfaction in idle words, but kept on going into arrears.

In May 1888 things came to a crisis.