40 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE SELECT COMMITTEE /osep/l Grow, Esq.
procters or process-servers ?—They
are employed to protect the process-server or
the driver for the clergy; thev are merely employed as a protecting guard.
My ,24January 1832.
instructions to the police are, never to interfere beyond protecting the man acting
for the clergyman, but nt-ver to act themselves.
-479.
Although they go out to protect the life of the process-server, in fact may they not be saicfto be employed to facilitate the collection of the tithe of the clergy-man?—Yes,
certainlv, to facilitate it.
480.
Have you a copy of an affidavit made by a valuator for the purpose of obtaining the assistance of the police?—I
have.
*' County of Kilkenny 1 William Swan, of Durrow, in the county of Kilkenny, maketh
to wit.
j oath on die Holy Evangelists, and saith, That on the 1st day of September 1831, he accompanied the Reverend Francis Lodge, and Francis Lodge, jun.
his son, to the parish of Kilmocar, of which parish the said Rev.
Francis Lodge is incumbent, for the purpose of ascertaining from some of the most respectable parishioners whether, in case valuators should proceed to view and value the tithes of this year, they conceived danger would attend them.
Deponent saith, he was told by many of them it would be dangerous to attempt doing so, and one influential farmer said the valuators would be killed even though they had a thousand military or police to protect them."
This deponent and Mr.
Lodge proceeded further into the parish, and they were shouted after by a large party of men, who were armed with pitchforks and other weapons, and at one place they were stopped by four men armed with pitchforks and stones, who said they were valuing tithes, and in the meantime the party that were behind them came up close to this deponent and the Reverend Mr.
Lodge, and flung stones at them, and called out to stop Mr.
Lodge, junior, who pulled down a notice which was posted on a tree in the churchyard of Kilmocar, and which was taken down by the said Francis Lodge, junior, in de-ponent's presence, and which is in the words following :
' Captain Fearnot threatens them who are within and without the suburbs of this place not to fail on the day the proctors are to come to value tithes, any man who directs them to another man's house, or walks with them, will be slaughtered to death, his cattle murdered on the "fields, the house nocked on his family ; and if it be a thing that they will come, any man who stands by gazing will get the same trimming.
Signed by Captain 'Fearnot.'
This deponent saith, that he, the Reverend Francis Lodge, and Francis Lodge, junior, would inevitably have fallen into the hands of the multitude by whom they were pursued, but for the rapidity with which they rode off, having galloped their horses as fast as they possibly could.
Wz/Zzflw *SW/z.
Sworn before me this 12th day of September 1831.
Joseph Green, R.
M."
481.
Can you state in what class of life the opponents to tithe are principally found; are they substantial farmers of the county, or the occupying cottiers ?—
I think the substantial farmers of the county are not only concerned as well as the others, but, generally speaking, are the advisers and leaders.
482.
Have you attempted to trace the origin of this hostility to tithe?—No,
I have not.
483.
Do you consider it to be an objection growing out of the mode of valuing and collecting tithes; or do you consider it to be a hostility founded "upon the nature of tithes?—Upon
the nature of tithes.
484.
Do you consider it to be a Roman-catholic objection, applying to the ap-plication of tithes to a Protestant Establishment in Ireland ?—The
objection is more to the Roman-catholic being demanded to pay tithes than to the Protestant Establishment.
4S5.
Then you think that the Roman-catholics of Ireland would not object to pay the_Protestant Church, but on different terms from that on which they do at present r—I think that they would probably make an objection, but the objection would not be the same as it is to tithes.
Several farmers have told me themselves that they would rather pay 6 5.
an acre rent than pay 1 j.
tithes.
486.
You stated that you have been 10 months the resident magistrate of the county of Kilkenny; what situation did you hold before?—I
was a magistrate of the county before ; I have been a magistrate for 18 or 20 years.
487.
You stated that this resistance to tithe has greatly increased within the last 10 months ; from what cause has that originated ?—It
is a very hard matter to sayj but I think the people have been ill-advised, and I particularly speak of the county of Kilkenny ; 1 think it spread there from the contested election which took place last February between rny Lord Duncannon and Colonel Butler; for at that time
