cloontakilla

Updated: May 28, 2025

But for general misery I think the home of the Browne family at Cloontakilla equals, and more than equals anything I have seen during a long experience of painful sights. The road to it as already described, is a quagmire, and the dwelling, when arrived at, exceeds the wildest of nightmares.

Bernard Henry Becker - Disturbed Ireland: Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81.

She will wear a cheap gown, but of the latest fashion, and a knowing-looking hat flung on at a killing angle; and she will don smart boots while she is in Ballina, and will take them off before she is far on her way to Cloontakilla, and trudge along the road as barefooted as of old.

Bernard Henry Becker - Disturbed Ireland: Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81.

Everybody is not so deep in his landlord's books as the irreconcileable Thomas Browne, of Cloontakilla; but a vast number of poor tenants owe one and a half and two years' rent. I speak of those whose holdings are "set" from 3l. to 8l. per annum.

Bernard Henry Becker - Disturbed Ireland: Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81.

One day there is an ejectment at Ballycastle; the next an abortive attempt to evict at Cloontakilla. In the opinion of the poorer peasantry this eccentric lady is a malevolent fiend, an "extherminathor," a tyrant striving to make the lives of the poor so wretched as to drive them off her estate. "A sthrange lady is she, Sorr," cried one of her tenants to me.

Bernard Henry Becker - Disturbed Ireland: Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81.

I mentioned in a previous letter a particularly "tough customer" who, owing £24 for three years' rent, would part neither with a single shilling nor with the land. I thought this champion of the irreconcilables must be worth a visit, and foregoing the diversion of a call on Tom Molloy, a noted character in the Ballina district, I drove out in the direction of Cloontakilla.

Bernard Henry Becker - Disturbed Ireland: Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81.

It was obviously necessary at the end of the hay harvest to appoint a caretaker to see that the crop was not "lifted," after the manner of that of the irreconcilable Tom Browne, of Cloontakilla, county Mayo. Hence, Laurence Griffin, a labouring man, with an acre patch of land to his house, was given the job of looking after the hay, and occasionally summoning Sullivan for trespass.

Bernard Henry Becker - Disturbed Ireland: Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81.