3-028-736 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches from Ireland: Mike Brannan's cabin in the Hundred Acres Bog, 1870. '...a party of constabulary out at night in the neighbourhood of Keltullagh,...for the purpose of arresting on a warrant a woman named Homan, who had illegally entered into possession of some land belonging to one James Vesey, saw in the dim light a large party of men in the centre of a bog near the cabin of Michael Brannan. On directing their steps towards them the men scampered off in all directions, and by the time the police arrived at the cabin the majority had made their escape, and of those that remained only one, a man named Morin, was captured. On entering Brannan's cabin the police learnt from him and his wife that shortly before, while they were in bed and asleep, the door had been burst in by a considerable number of men, three or four of whom entered the cabin, and in the dark, with the view that they might not be recognised, proceeded to force Brannan to take an oath "to be true to the country, and to pay no higher rent for his holding than the poor-law valuation of it." The police conveyed their prisoner to gaol, and he...intimated his desire to give information to the authorities to enable the remainder of the gang to be secured'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.