ABSTRACT
In the same year in which Orbiston was sold, the Lord Lieutenant made a military progress in County Clare in May 1830 to survey the troubles. These troubles were perhaps best symbolized by the conditions prevailing on the Ralahine estate of John Scott Vandeleur, a landowner in County Clare, whose 618-acre estate lay midway between the two main roads from Limerick to Ennis and twenty miles from each. Half the estate, some 300 acres, consisted of cultivated land, a bog of sixty-three acres used as a fuel source, a lake for water power, and a small stream. Vandeleur's peasants walked up to six miles in order to work under a harsh and brutal steward, who on one hot summer's day, at reaping time, when some of them had stopped to take a drink of water from a can in the corner of the field, angrily kicked the can over, saying that it was merely an excuse for wasting time. The peasants took their revenge. At midnight, they held a meeting in Cratloe Wood on the borders of the lake and swore to kill him. Lots were drawn and, soon afterwards, as the steward was bolting the door of his house, he was shot in cold blood.
