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Updated: May 27, 2025
There had been a libel case between the Rev. Denis O'Donoghue, parish priest of Ardfert, and myself. The address of this cleric in proposing Mr. Blennerhasset at the nomination had annoyed those he assailed intensely. Up to that point I had been utterly indifferent, but after that I strained every nerve to defeat Father O'Donoghue's nominee. This is an extract from his speech at Ardfert:
There is abundant evidence of Mr. Mahony's work on his estate, which is not only valuable in itself but as an example. The roads are admirably laid, and the employment of concrete made of Portland cement and the sand and pebbles of the seashore, since followed at Ardfert, was initiated at Dromore.
My wife and the former Archdeacon of Ardfert appealed for subscriptions and obtained £120, which enabled the unfortunate survivors to return to Scotland. That was the settlement of the land question that suited the Nationalists, namely, to cause the death of the head of the family, and to get the rest out of the country.
On portions of the Blennerhasset estate previously spoken of, and on the Commons of Ardfert, the effect may be studied of influences against which the modern Kerry landlord has been in many cases striving for the whole of his lifetime. Half a century ago the advice to "neither a borrower nor a lender be," was systematically ignored.
A smart drive from Tralee northwards through a blinding rain landed me at Ardfert, the village in the centre of Mr. W. Crosbie's wonderfully improved estate. Going about his work quietly and unostentatiously, the proprietor has, in the course of forty-two years, completely altered the conditions of existence on his land.
Crosbie's estate in Kerry is of 9,913 acres valued by Government at 4,638l., with a present rent roll of 8,500l., thanks to the expenditure of 40,000l. since 1839. As one approaches Ardfert the cabin common in Kerry vanishes to make room for houses well and substantially built of concrete, with whale-back roofs also of concrete.
The chief Elizabethan settlers in Kerry were William and Charles Herbert, Valentine Brown, ancestor of the Kenmares, Edmund Denny, and Captain Conway, whose daughter Avis married Robert Blennerhasset, while a little later, in 1600, John Crosbie was made Bishop of Ardfert and Aghadoe.
What was done by landlords and middlemen in many places has been emulated by squatters wherever they have succeeded in occupying free land like the Commons of Ardfert, the condition whereof rivals that of Lurgankeale, in Louth, and of the historic townland of Tibarney, in common, a map of which hung, if I mistake not, for some time in the Library of the House of Commons.
The little Kerries are greatly prized as "milkers," and they yield good beef, but very little of it not more than four hundredweight per beast. By the side of the superb shorthorns of the Ardfert herd they look like goats; but such cattle as Mr. Crosbie's cream-coloured bull are only suited to richer pasture than the rocks of Lamb Head.
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