Tipperary Free Press, 14 September 1880

John B. Keane could have scripted this scene, which reports on the attempted sale in Carrick on Suir of the farm previously occupied by an evicted tenant. Sales such as these were commonplace throughout the early years of the 1880s, and opposition to and resistance of them was led by Michael Davitt’s Land League. Despite his exasperated appeals and threats, the auctioneer, Mr. Thomas Rockett, was met with either stony silence or derisory offers, until such a time as he admitted defeat and cancelled the auction. Subsequent editions of the Tipperary Free Press make no more mention of the farm or what became of it. The report is a great insight into the tumult that existed in rural Ireland in the 1870s and 80s. Swap the names it contains with those of “The Bull”, “Tadhg”, “The Bird” and Mick Flanagan” and you have yourself a wonderful re-enactment of one of “The Field’s” most famous scenes.