Five hundred men with spades
2022 is a year that will live long in the memory in Cloughjordan. Kilruane MacDonaghs' first Tipp SHC title since 1985 is an achievement that is likely to be spoken about locally for generations to come.
It is an achievement that also gives cause for some to think of a remarkable event that occurred in Cloughjordan at this time of year many generations ago on the land that is now MacDonaghs' home.
Local man Paddy Williams wrote about it in this year's volume of ‘Cloughjordan Heritage’. Detailing activities of the Cloughjordan Land League between 1880 and 1881, Paddy told of how the man who owned that land at the time, PJ O'Reilly, was jailed for disrupting a fox hunt.
O'Reilly was the secretary of the Cloughjordan Land League, which had been formed in November 1880 to support local tenants, particularly those threatened with eviction. Tension between landlords and tenants had escalated on a national level and in October 1881 the Land League was banned as an illegal society. Its leaders - including Charles Stuart Parnell and Tipperary MP John Dillon, among many others - were jailed.
Fox-hunting was regarded as the pursuit of landlords and gentry; when on November 22 the Earl of Huntingdon brought his fox hounds to hunt at Knocknacree Wood, Cloughjordan, O'Reilly seized upon the opportunity to make a bold statement.
He led an estimated 200 Land League supporters to Scott's Hill behind the wood, where they prevented the hunt from proceeding.
They told the Earl that neither he nor his party would be allowed to hunt in the locality until firstly the Land League leaders were released from jail, and secondly until the local magistrates rescinded their decision to look for extra police to deal with the activities of the local Land League.
A further incident happened a week later when a Youghal Hounds group came to hunt at Cloneen.
They were attacked by a crowd of men and boys armed with sticks and stones.
On December 19, the Earl of Huntingdon made another attempt to hunt in the parish at Sopwell. This time the hunt was prevented by a crowd of several hundred men.
REPRISAL
O'Reilly was arrested for his involvement in stopping the hunt at Knocknacree Wood. He was taken from his home on December 14 and was sentenced to three months in Clonmel jail.
On December 29, the local Land League branch organised a rally in Cloughjordan in support of O'Reilly. An estimated 700 Land League members and supporters from Cloughjordan, Borrisokane, Toomevara, Moneygall and Shinrone, along with the Cloughjordan Fife and Drum Band, attended the rally.
They were met by a strong show of force of 20 RIC and 60 military personnel. The musicians gathered were not allowed to play, nor were the speakers allowed to address the crowd.
But around 500 of those gathered had brought spades with them. Perhaps imbued with a sense of Christmas goodwill, and certainly determined to show defiance to the authorities, they proceeded to O'Reilly's field on the Nenagh Road and set about tilling it. In one hour and ten minutes, these 500 men tilled the three-and-a-half-acre field.
That field is now the Thomas MacDonagh Park, headquarters of the Kilruane MacDonaghs hurling club.
PJ O’Reilly was released from jail on March 20 the following year. There was great rejoicing in Cloughjordan and the town was illuminated for his homecoming.
You can read about this and many other activities of the local Land League in ‘Cloughjordan Heritage Volume XI’.