Letter from Peter Molloy to Lord Wimborne, 29 January 1916 Letters 1916-1923 Peter Molloy

This work was originally published by Maynooth University in Ireland in 2017. In 2026 this data, stored in a relational database was extracted and converted into this TEI/XML document.

 Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities Vienna, AT 2026

This is an open access work licensed under Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC 4.0).

This is a letter from Peter Molloy (1868-) a ex-R I C member forced into retirement by illness and now turned farmer,writing to Lord Wimborne, Sir Ivor Churchill Guest (1873-1939), was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1915-1918). From the beginning of 1916 Wimborne began agitating for measures to be taken against the Irish Volunteers, but was constantly dissuaded by Birrell and Nathan. However, Wimborne's early recommendations for action reflected favourably on him after the 1916 Rising. In this letter Molly is writing to Wimborne in an attempt to get what he perceives as justice for his family. Molloy talks about how his neighbours are being treated really well by their landlord, having great new home and being given more land, while he and his family are stuck in a "hovel" while better houses are available and vacant. He also says that the landlord did not give them a piece of the extra land that was shared with everyone else. Molloy claims that his family had done so much for the British Empire and all he asks for in return is a suitable place to raise his daughters. Molloy pleads with the Lord Lieutenant to interfere and improve their life.

 National Archives of Ireland Chief Secretary's Office Registered Papers, CSO RP/1916/4057 https://letters1916.ie/item/5771 English Peter Molloy 1916-01-29 Lunarton, Ahascragh, Ballinasloe, County Galway, Ireland Ivor Churchill Guest Male Industry and Public Administration Industry and Public Administration

The data in these XML files was generated based on a data dump from the Magellan database (https://github.com/Maynooth-Center-for-Digital-Humanities/Magellan). Each database record has been converted to a JSON file (https://github.com/letters1916static/letters-data/tree/main/json). The element section of the JSON file contains the TEI-encoded contents of the letters. The TEI XML has been cleaned and made well-formed using a Python script (https://github.com/letters1916static/letters-data/tree/main/src).

 Lunarton Ahascragh Ballinasloe 29:1:16 Memorial Re Unjust Treatment to tenant farmer for having served his king in the R.I.C. Mahon Estate. To His Excellency Lord Wimborne, May it please your Excellency, It is with great diffidence I beg most respectfully to bring under your Excellency's notice the following grave injustice meted to me by the Estates Commissioners and their representative Mr. Tynan :- I served in the R.I.C. force for nineteen years, having then to retire through chronic ill health on the small pension of £25..13..9 per annum, retiring in June 1906, having served the last nine years of my service in the local police barrack here, Ballinamore Bridge. Some months afterwards this house and holding of land was put up for sale and I purchased the then tenant's interest in it for £130. The holding comprises between eight and nine statute acres half of it upland tillage, the other half callow or bottom pasture. When I purchased in 1907, cattle driving became prevalent in the locality, so that practically every able bodied man in this and adjoining townlands townlands participated in it. Owing to this the landlords, &c, had to give the tenants the grazing farms or ranches held by graziers, and for the same rents. Owing to my non-participation in the cattle driving and to keep aloof from all their further disputes I neither sought nor obtained any benefits in the grazing tracts newly acquired, believing in the justice of the Commissioners when the land would be finally divided by them, having suffered much financial loss during the intervening years. In an interview, Mr Tynan, Estates Commissioners' representative had with the tenants here, at which I was not present, about a year and four months ago, the former when enquiring for me was told by one of the tenants that I was a police pensioner and did not want any land I was informed casually afterwards by the same tenant who made the remark and that Mr. Tynan said then "I was not in his line" meaning, I presume, for a share in the division of the land. I wrote to Mr Tynan when I heard of his remark regarding me, stating I authorised no one to say I did not want additional land, and requesting equal treatment with the rest of the tenants, having made a previous application to him for one of the new vacant houses and farms at Sonnagh, near Ahascragh; but I got no acknowledgement of either; but I still believed justice would be meted to me at the final division division here, but alas! I have been disappointed. Mr Tynan visited this townland on Friday 21st inst and gave additional land to each one but myself. He gave almost three holdings - nearly three times as much a I hold to a bachelor with no one to support but himself and an aged mother, who is getting the old age pension. The upland of one of these holdings is distinct from the other two, separated nearly half a mile from them, but is adjoining my holding, one portion of it within seven yards of it. To another tenant who is married for a number of years, and has no family he has given some additional acres, this tenant having a double holding or an economic one without this addition, whilst I, with an uneconomic holding got no addition. I also informed Mr Tynan my dwelling house was in a bad state, the back wall of it projecting inwards and outwards making it dangerous for habitation. Now, four dwelling houses have been vacated (by those who have got new ones) each of which is better and more substantial than mine, one of these situated more centrally opposite my land than the hovel I dwell in; but it has been given to my neighbour, who has an excellent house already, and who will make no use of it but pull it down, and this at a time when economy is being continually preached. My dwelling is is situated in close proximity to two filthy cess- pools of my neighbours' streets, insanitary in the extreme for myself, wife and two girls, nieces, to dwell; whilst the vacant dwelling house aforementioned, abutting and overlooking my land is situated on a clean, healthy site, comparatively, and could be easily utilised in conjunction with my land. I now most respectfully request Your Excellency, as representing his Most Gracious Majesty will direct an impartial investigation into my case; for my kith and kin have done far more for His Majesty's Empire than ; my father the late John Molloy, ex Sergt R.I.C. and my uncles, by their loyalty in the fenian period of 67 contributed their share in earning the title of R.I.C. for the force from the late Queen Victoria - a sister's son of mine has volunteered all the way from Newzealand (his name is private John McDonnell) for the front; a cousin Martin William Molloy R.I.C. Limerick volunteered and is also at the front; whilst a reservist named John Molloy returned from the United States and is also at the front, my cousin also - contrast this action, Your Excellency, of my friends who were so remote from the war theatre in volunteering, with my neighbours who have been generously treated by the commissioners two of whose sons of military age endeavoured to flee to the United States when the shipping was stopped at Liverpool, and Your Excellency will will at least conclude that myself, wife, and little girls should not be deprived of any of the habitations vacated by my neighbours. Apologising to Your Excellency for tres- passing so much on your precious time at this critical juncture. I remain, Your Excellency's most obedient and humble servant. Peter Molloy To His Excellency Lord Wimborne Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Peter Molloy Letter from Peter Molloy to Lord Wimborne, 29 January 1916 Ivor Churchill Guest Letter from James Patrick Farrell to Lord Wimborne, 27 March 1916Letter from W. H. M. Cobbe to Lord Wimborne, 29 April 1916Letter from 'a loyal subject' to Lord Wimborne, 30 April 1916Letter from William Sheehan to Lord Wimborne, 26 May 1916Letter from David G. Curtin to Lord Wimborne, 25 March 1916Letter from John R. Johnson to Lord Wimborne, 18 November, 1915Letter from 'A Loyal Subject' to Lord Wimborne, undated, circa 22 November, 1915Letter from Patrick H. O'Brien to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 20 June 1916Letter from the Town Clerk, Blackrock, County Dublin, to Lord Wimborne, 20 April 1916Letter from Major J. Crean to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 4 May 1916Letter from M. Bonham Carter to Lord Wimborne, 19 February 1916Letter from Edward Marsh to Lord Wimborne, 13 May 1916Letter from Patrick O'Brien to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 21 June 1916Letter from Reginald Le Normand Brabazon, the Earl of Meath, to Lord Wimborne, 7 February 1916Letter from the Earl of Shaftsbury to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 31 December 1915Letter from John Butler to Lord Wimborne, 15 November 1915Letter from Nicholas Nally to the Lord Lieutenant, 17 May 1916Letter from Lord Wimborne to Sir John Maxwell, 1 May 1916.Letter from Lord Wimborne to Sir John Maxwell, 1 May 1916Letter from Lord Wimborne to Sir John Maxwell, 3 May 1916Letter from William M. Nolan to Lord Wimborne, 13 March 1916Letter from Thomas G. Buchanan to Lord Wimborne, 19 May 1916Letter from Jones McKenna to Lord Wimborne, 21 August 1916Letter from Hanoria Shanahan to the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Wimborne, 29 March 1916Letter from Peter Molloy to Lord Wimborne, 29 January 1916Letter from Lord Wimborne to Sir John Maxwell, 29 April 1916 Lunarton, Ahascragh, Ballinasloe, County Galway, Ireland Letter from Peter Molloy to Lord Wimborne, 29 January 1916