School: Finiskill (roll number 13075)
- Location:
- Finiskil, Co. Leitrim
- Teacher: Cathal Ó Floinn
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0219, Page 368
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- (continued from previous page)Farmers were often forbidden to till certain fields especially if they had been tilled a few years previously. Obviously it was impossible for Lord Leitrim to prevent all this tenants from "breaking" any field they wished to "break" but if he should chance to find, on his journeys through the estate, any tenant contravening his orders in this respect the penalty was often much more severe than the occasion demanded.James Molloy, Corbeagh, Mohill tells of an episode during his father's life-time to illustrate the tyrannical harshness of Lord Leitrim. Molloy's father - also James by name - had tilled a field on top of Corbeagh hill, which rises steeply behind his house. This field was, by the landlord's order, "not for cultivation", but owing to the remoteness of his farm from Lord Leitrim's residence, James decided to take a chance and so he dug the field labouriously with his loy (Láidhe) and carried the manure thither with his donkey and creels. But when the work was completed the landlord himself chanced to come along one day on horseback. Stopping outside Molloy's house he called imperiously upon him to come out and explain why he had dug the field. As the explanation was unsatisfactory he commanded the poor man to turn back all the ridges which he had dug and plant his potato crop elsewhere. This he had(continues on next page)
