With regard to the first accusation there was generally a counter-charge from the Committees, accusing the Board’s officers of being insulting and overbearing to them.  One of the most noteworthy cases of this kind occurred at Ennistymon.  Captain Wynne, the Board of Works’ inspector, writes a long complaint about the treatment he had received from the members of the Committee there; it being, amongst other things, he says, proposed that he should be kicked out of the Court-house, where the Committee was assembled.  The well-disposed few, he writes, advised him to stay at Ennistymon for the night, or to take an escort of police with him, should he persevere in his intention of returning to Ennis; “but,” he continues, “with my double gun, a rifle, and three cases of pistols, Mr. Gamble, myself, and Mr. Russell returned home.  Mr. Russell was very anxious to see a Clare Relief Committee.  He was indeed astonished.  He said he would not have supposed matters were so bad."[150] There is a fine dash of the sensational in this.  Mr. Russell’s anxiety was very laudable, being evidently akin to that thirst for information which excites travellers like Captain Cook or Dr. Livingstone to seek an assembly or encampment of “natives” in some previously unexplored region; but there happened to be members of the Ennistymon Relief Committee in every respect the equals, and in some the superiors of Captain Wynne and Mr. Russell.  Major M’Namara, one of the members for the county, thus gives his version of the affair to the Chief Secretary, Mr. Labouchere:  “I feel it to be my duty towards myself and the constituency of this county, to state to you, as the organ of the Government, that I was present on Thursday at Ennistymon, when Mr. Wynne, an inspecting officer of the Board of Works, gave my colleague, Mr. O’Brien, in the presence of several magistrates and gentlemen assembled at the Ennistymon Relief Committee, the most unprovoked insult, by stating that he treated what Mr. O’Brien said with utter contempt, although Mr. O’Brien merely observed that certain letters containing what we all believed to be unfounded charges against the Liscannor Committee, afforded evidence of a vile conspiracy.”  Captain Wynne being called on by the authorities for an explanation, charged the gentry of Clare with putting their servants and dependants on the lists for public works without being proper objects for them, and that they were indignant with him because he took such persons off in great numbers.  He did not, however, deny the insult Major M’Namara had charged him with giving his brother representative for the county, Mr. Cornelius O’Brien.[151]