Paying tribute to Ballina's forgotten hero
Authors Colum MacDonnell and Yvonne Ahearn Kevany present a copy of their book on Arthur Muffeny to Iar Taoiseach Enda Kenny.
Arthur Muffeny lived to be 76 at a time when the average male life expectancy in Ireland was 52 years. At the age of 74, we find him clambering over the locked gate of his Ballina sawmills in the early hours after fire broke out within. The mills would soon be back in action.
During a long life, he experienced considerable economic success but he also suffered unjust deprivation of freedom. Small in stature but large in achievement and courage, Muffeny faced down a policy to reduce Ireland to nothing more than Britain’s cabbage garden.
Twice a guest of Her Imperial Majesty’s Government, Arthur’s first stint was under the 1881 Coercion Act, which allowed for internment without trial. The accused were those suspected of involvement in the Land War. Habeas Corpus was suspended. Internment depended on the whims of Dublin Castle. In fact, anybody could be interned.
The of June 1881 notes that one internee, Arthur Muffeny, was a Town Commissioner of Ballina and former President of the Ballina branch of the Irish National Land League.
Muffeny’s second incarceration came in December 1899. He was again sentenced to six calendar months in Castlebar Gaol. This time, he had denounced an act of land grabbing when a certain Mr Hughes took possession of his cousin’s farm. The charge was one of ‘conspiracy’.
What was the cause of Muffeny’s strong feelings about landlordism and land tenure?
Most likely, his experiences as a boy of families of men, women and children being forcibly ejected from their miserable homes during the Famine had left an indelible mark upon him. Between 1845 and 1847, the Famine reduced the population of Ireland by over one million, thereafter steadily dwindling.
The is reported to have said: "Soon the Celt will be as rare on the banks of the Liffey as the Redskin on the banks of the Manhattan."
Sir Charles Trevelyan, notorious for ending the relief programme which provided a daily ration of soup and bread to a starving population, saw the devastating potato blight as "an effectual remedy to Ireland’s over-population".
Many who left Mayo bravely set out to reach the shores of America and prospered. But many others stayed at home to battle against the status quo, to seek reform of the impoverished state in which they lived, people like Muffeny.
Muffeny’s enterprises were numerous. They included constructing the Town Hall, which incorporated Ballina’s first cinema; operating a foundry which produced 140 steel shovels and spades a day, harnessing the stream to operate a 224lb hammer, which was used to flatten the iron; providing a handball alley and gymnasium; operating steam-powered saw mills; four retail outlets - at Bridge Street, Arran Street, Knox Street; builders providers/ timber and slate merchants; coach and car builders; auctioneer and valuer; constructing houses at Arran Street and St Patrick's Terrace to help those evicted.
He provided employment for many in Ballina. What would he have achieved if born in a city like New York or Boston?
Reports in the describe queues of poor people at the gates of his sawmills on Saturdays. He was a charitable man.
As well as being successful in many of his enterprises, Muffeny put a great deal of intellectual and physical energy into furthering the objectives of the Land League of Mayo. It was set up in Castlebar in 1879 to defend tenants’ rights against landlords and to bring about the conversion of tenants into owners. Soon afterwards the Irish National Land League was formed.
What had started as a local regional issue in the province of Connacht would soon take on a national, not to say international, complexion.
Firstly, he would denounce landlordism from every public platform available. He was invariably welcomed as a speaker. He addressed the first meeting at Irishtown, and Davitt’s great Land League meeting in Killala, having brought the Swinford Brass Band there at his own expense.
Secondly, he would oppose all landlords’ applications for evictions. His battles with Harriet Gardiner are legendary. The reports one encounter in 1880. Muffeny is quoted as saying that the notorious Gardiner is ‘better fitted for a fish stall than the position of a landed proprietress’.
Ms Gardiner replies: ‘I have no objection to fish if they are good and I will invite Mr Muffeny to dine upon them.'
Muffeny declines the company of tyrants, as he puts it, and advises Ms Gardiner to mend her ways.
The of Williamsport, Pennsylvania reports an incident in which he orders Ms Gardiner out of his hardware shop. She is followed by an excited crowd yelling and hooting. Ms Gardiner brandished a six-chamber revolver before being accompanied by the police to her hotel. The newspaper comments that Ms Gardiner is quite a good shot!
He was sometimes successful in having eviction orders quashed or postponed.
The Land War in Mayo gave a new term to the English language – the term Boycott. This was the name of Lord Erne’s agent, Captain Charles Boycott. The locals refused to work for him following evictions from his Lordship’s estate. The Captain imported workers, Orangemen, from County Cavan.
Parish Priest John O’Malley considered the word ‘ostracisation’ to describe what was happening beyond the capacity of the locals on the shores of Lough Mask and suggested the word ‘Boycott’ instead.
Events in Mayo changed the course of history.
Looking at the national picture we see that various Land Acts were passed by the British Government from 1881 onward which saw the break-up of large estates and the gradual devolution to rural tenants of the ownership of the lands. The 1903 Land Purchase Act allowed tenants to buy out their freeholds with UK Government loans over 68 years – an arrangement not available in Britain itself.
Under the various Land Acts, 316,000 tenants purchased their holdings. These amounted to 15 out of 20 million acres in the country. The 1906 Labourers (Ireland) Act provided funding for rural labourers’ housing which paid county councils to build 40,000 new cottages, each on an acre of land, a target which seems beyond the scope of recent governments.
At a meeting of Town Commissioners in 1886, Muffeny proposed various changes in Ballina’s street names to commemorate those who had dedicated their lives to seeking national independence. The changes were implemented eventually - in 1924.
Finally, he was largely responsible for erecting the Ballina Humbert Monument, as chairman of the committee welcoming Maud Gonne and various VIPs to the unveiling. The magnificent spinning wheel he presented to Maud Gonne-MacBride can be seen in the Clew Bay Heritage Centre in Westport, on loan from the MacBride family.
It is no exaggeration to say that, as a significant player in a Land League movement which originated in Mayo, Muffeny had an important role. The movement that started in Irishtown has been described as one of the greatest agrarian revolutions ever to take place. None of the above is to take from the major achievements of James Daly, Michael Davitt, Parnell and others, but to acknowledge the part played by a very unusual Ballina man driven by the spirit of enterprise, independence, and charity.
Davitt’s grandson, Patrick, pays generous tribute to Muffeny on the back cover of the recently published book, . The authors are Yvonne Ahearn-Kevany and Colum MacDonnell, Muffeny’s great-grandchildren.
Sometimes the question has been asked why Arthur has not been recognised for all his good work in Ballina. Were the local Connacht activists effectively sidelined? As Anthony Layng writes recently in the there was a local cost to be paid for gaining the national stage.
Arthur was not unduly worried, being content to look after his various local enterprises and his family.
A plaque recently unveiled in the centre of the town of Ballina shows the part played by Arthur Muffeny in the evolution of the State in which we can all enjoy citizenship and land ownership. The excellent book is available at Pangur Bán and Easons in Ballina.
