Large contributions of relief were also made to Gweedore from the Duchess of Marlborough's Fund, and Gweedore became a standing butt of British benevolence.

Two results seem to have followed, naturally enough,--a growing indisposition on the part of the tenants to pay rent, and a rapid rise in the value of tenant rights.

With the National League standing between them and the landlord, with the British Parliament legislating year after year in favour of the Irish tenant and against the Irish landlord, and with the philanthropic public ready to respond to any appeal for help made on their behalf, the tenants at Gweedore naturally became a privileged class.

In no other way at least can I explain the extraordinary fact that tenant rights at Gweedore have been sold, according to Lord Cowper's Blue-book of 1886, during the period of the greatest alleged distress and congestion in this district, at prices representing from forty to a hundred-and-thirty years' purchase of the landlord's rent! In this Blue-book the Rev.Father M'Fadden appears as receiving no less than L115 sterling for the tenant-right sold by him of ground, the head rent of which is L1, 2s.6d.a year.

The worst enemy of Father M'Fadden will hardly suspect him, I hope, of taking such a sum as this from a tenant farmer for the right to starve to death by inches.[13] A shrewd Galway man, now here, who seems to know the region well, and likes both the scenery and the people, tells me that the troubles which have now culminated in the arrest of Father M'Fadden have been aggravated by the vacillation of Captain Hill, and by the foibles of his agent, Colonel Dopping, who not long ago brought down Mr.Gladstone with his unloaded rifle.