The Ballinglass Incident is an episode from the Great Famine (1845-1849) when over 300 Irish peasants living in the village of Ballinglass were evicted from their land by wealthy British landowners wishing to raze the village to the ground to build a grazing farm. The Ballinglass Incident was one of the terrible excesses committed by the British against the Irish during the Great Irish Famine.
With the Act of Union signed in 1801, England formalized the creation of the United Kingdom, a kingdom made up of the Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and the Kingdom of Ireland. From then on, Ireland was an integral part of the United Kingdom, and the majority of Irish land was acquired by wealthy English landowners.
Irish peasants were reduced to tenants of the land, and had to give most of their produce to the landlords, with the exception of potatoes, which they used to eat or sell to the local population. All the rest of the production was used as rent for the owners, or exported to England.
Unfortunately for Irish farmers, a parasite (mildew) attacked potato fields as early as 1845, leaving the whole of Ireland unable to support the local population. The population soon experienced what would later be known as the Great Famine (1845-1849): the population starved to death.
As a result of poor potato harvests, farmers are unable to sell their produce and are mired in debt and poverty… Unable to pay rent to wealthy English landowners, the peasants were driven from their lands and homes.
It is estimated that tens of thousands of Irish families were driven from their homes during the Great Famine (1845-1849).
The village of Ballinglass (Co. Galway) was affected by these evictions. While the village’s peasants still managed to pay the rent, the 300 inhabitants of Ballinglass were evicted on March 13, 1846 at the request of Mrs. Gerrard, a wealthy British landowner who wished to establish a grazing farm on the exact site of the village…
In order to evict the inhabitants of Ballinglass en masse, the British army and police destroyed the village’s houses. With no roof over their heads, the inhabitants decided to sleep the first night in the village ruins. The next day, the police and army were once again on the scene, this time to evict the population once and for all…
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