When the Land Act of 1881 was passed, almost all the tenants applied, and had judicial rents fixed, many of them by consent of the agent.

In 1887 the tenants were called on as usual to pay these judicial rents.  A large minority refused to do so except on certain terms, which were refused.  The dispute continued for many months, but as the charges on the estate had to be met, the agent was obliged to give way, and allow an abatement of four shillings in the pound on these judicial rents.  Some of these charges, to meet which the agent gave way, were for money borrowed from the Commissioners of Public Works to improve the holdings of the tenants.  For these improvements thus thrown entirely upon the funds of the estate no increase of rent or charge of any kind had been laid upon the tenants.

When a settlement was agreed on, those of the tenants who had adopted the Plan came in a body to pay their rents on 3d January 1888.  They stated that they were unable to pay more than the rent due up to November 1886, and that they would never have adopted the Plan had they not been driven into it by sheer distress.  After which they handed Mr. Richardson a cheque drawn by John T. Dillon, Esq., M.P., for the amount banked with the National League.

An article appeared shortly afterwards in a League newspaper, loudly boasting of the great victory won by Mr. Dillon, M.P., for the starving and poverty-stricken tenants.  Two of these tenants (brothers) were under a yearly rent of L7, 10s.  They declared they could only pay L3, 15s., or a half-year’s rent, and this only if they got an abatement of 15s.  Yet these same tenants were then paying Mr. Richardson L50 a year for a grass farm, and about L12 for meadows, as well as L30 a year more for a grass farm to an adjoining landlord.

Another tenant who held a farm at L13, 5s. a year declared he could only pay L6, 12s. 6d., or a half-year’s rent, if he got an abatement of L1, 6s. 6d.  A very short time before, this tenant had taken a grass farm from an adjoining landlord, and he was so anxious to get it that he showed the landlord a bundle of large notes, amounting to rather more than L300 sterling, in order to prove his solvency!  The same tenant has since written a letter to Mr. Richardson offering L50 a year for a grass farm!

All these campaigners, Mr. Richardson says, “with one noble exception, the wife of a tenant who was ill, declined to pay a penny of rent beyond November 1st, 1886,” stating that they were “absolutely unable” to do more.  So they all left the May 1887 rent unpaid, and the hanging gale to November 1887, which, however, they were not even asked to pay.

The morning after the settlement many of the tenants who, when they were all present in a body on the previous evening, had declared their “inability” to pay the half-year’s rent due down to May 1887, individually came to Mr. Richardson unasked, and paid it, some saying they had “borrowed the money that night,” but others frankly declaring that they dared not break the rule publicly, having been ordered by the League only to pay to November 1886, for fear of the consequences.  These would have been injury to their cattle, or the burning of their hay, or possibly murder.