An Gorta Mór: The Ballinlass Evictions
13 Mar 1846: One of most notorious mass evictions took place at Ballinlass, Co. Galway, at the direction of local landlord Mrs. Marcella Netterville Gerrard. Estimates vary, but up to 477 tenants lost their homes that day. What separates this eviction was the sheer number of tenants displaced, the circumstances and almost military approach employed bailiffs, soliders and police involved.
Mr. John Gerrard and Mrs. Marcella Netterville Gerrard, resided at Gibbstown Co. Meath. Both were major landlords in their own right, managing their estates separately. Combined, the couple owned as many as 15,000 acres, with John’s holdings in Co. Meath and Marcella’s near Mountbellew (formerly Creggaun) Galway. She had inherited the property from the Netterville side of her family and within her large swath, sat the village of Ballinlass, consisting of 67 cottages..
By all reports the residents of Ballinlass were comparily wealthy among their peers. Landlords typically resorted to eviction when tenants were unable to pay their rent. In many cases, tenants were years in arrears before eviction came to pass.
This was not at all the case in Ballinlass. On the contrary, Mrs. Gerrard and those in her employ had refused to accept rent from her tenants for years. Her tenants actively and frequently attempted to settle their accounts., some visiting her home in person with intent to pay, only to be turned away. Nonetheless, failure to pay rent was Gerrard’s justification for the devastation she wrought upon her tenants..
Gerrard wished to turn the entire village into pasture lands, eliminating the hassle of dealing with tenantry and allowing her to capitalise on the price of beef. She had previously done so elsewhere on her estate, with some estimates tying her to the evictions of as many as 1,000 tenants in total.
Early on the morning of the 13th, a large force descended upon Ballinlass to carry out their orders including “12 carts, each having four men as levellers, and in each cart a supply of spades, pick-axes, and crow-bars, brought out with the military and the police.” House by house the occupants were warned to vacate their homes before the walls, and rooves were torn down around them. The atmosphere was chaotic with dogs barking at the invaders, children bawling while their parents protested and pleaded for mercy.
By the end of the day, only one house remained standing, home to an elderly couple who were too ill to move from their beds. That home too was destroyed in a matter of weeks.
All residents were forcefully warned to leave the area immediately. But when the raiding party departed, residents slowly began to emerge and retrieve whatever could be salvaged among the smashed furniture, shards of pottery and meager posessions scattered about.
As night fell, and with no place to go, some tenants elected to shelter within the foundations of their former homes, erecting scalpeens with the materials they could scavenge.
When news of of this reached Gerrard the next day, she ordered her men back out to Ballinlass the rip up each foundation and topple any remants of walls which remained. Under threat of violence, those who’d chosen to remain were then forced leave, joining their neighbors seeking shelter wherever they could, often in roadside ditches - leaving them physically vulnerable to hunger, disease, exposure and likely death. Eviction at this time was often considered a death sentence.
Newspapers were quick to report the horrible scene, with some sending reporters to the area to verify a story that seemed incomprehensible. Those reports confirmed the horrible story and helped spread it around the world.
The event was so horrifying that Daniel O'Connell made a point to publicly ridicule Mrs. Gerrard by name, four days later in the House of Commons. A woman previously known primarily for being one of Ireland’s wealthiest, was now notorious for being one of, if the not the most heartless landlords on the island.