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Welcome back to This Day in Irish History. I'm your host, Raymond Welsh. Before we dive into today's story, if you’d like to explore other significant events that happened on this day in Irish history, visit thisdayirishhistory.com—the link is in the episode description. Now, let’s journey back to April 8, 1861, when one of the most brutal episodes in Ireland’s long history of land struggle unfolded—the Derryveagh Evictions in County Donegal.
The man at the center of this infamous event was John George Adair, a wealthy landowner of Scottish descent who had purchased the Glenveagh estate in the remote and rugged Derryveagh region of Donegal during the 1850s. With sweeping ambitions and a taste for aristocratic grandeur, Adair envisioned transforming the wild landscape into an idyllic hunting estate, modeled on the Highland shooting lodges of Scotland. But to realize this dream, he believed he needed to clear the land of its people—244 tenants who had lived there for generations, eking out a living in some of the harshest terrain in Ireland.
The Derryveagh tenants were not wealthy. They were subsistence farmers, living in turf-roofed cottages, relying on small plots of land and the labor of extended families to survive. The scars of the Great Famine were still fresh, and economic hardship remained widespread across the country. Yet these people held on to their homes, their heritage, and their deep connection to the land.
John George Adair, however, viewed them as a nuisance—an obstacle to be removed. The immediate trigger for the evictions was allegedly a dispute over sheep-stealing and a souring of relations between Adair and the local community. But many historians argue that these were simply pretexts for a landlord determined to pursue his grand designs, regardless of the human cost.
And so, on April 8, 1861, Adair began what would become one of the most notorious clearances in Irish history. With chilling precision, he enlisted a force of over 200 police officers and soldiers to assist in the evictions. Over the course of just three days, thirty-two families—comprising 244 men, women, and children—were thrown out of their homes. Their cottages were destroyed, their possessions scattered, and their lives uprooted.
The evictions were carried out with military discipline, but also with shocking cruelty. Families were left to fend for themselves in the open air, many of them taking refuge in the workhouses of Letterkenny and Milford. Some emigrated, others died in poverty. The act was so brutal that it even drew criticism from other landlords and members of the British press. Adair, however, was unapologetic. In fact, he became known in Donegal folklore as "Black Jack Adair," a name that still carries a heavy legacy of bitterness and betrayal.
Though Adair eventually left Ireland and spent time in the United States—where he helped develop the Palo Duro Canyon ranch in Texas—his legacy in Donegal was sealed. The land he cleared would later form the heart of Glenveagh National Park, one of Ireland’s most stunning natural reserves. But the beauty of the landscape is shadowed by the memory of those who were driven from it.
The Derryveagh Evictions symbolize the darkest extremes of landlord power in 19th-century Ireland—a time when tenants had few rights, and entire communities could be erased at the whim of a single man. They also speak to a broader history of dispossession, a recurring theme in Irish life for centuries. Yet out of such suffering emerged a fierce sense of resistance and identity, one that would fuel later movements for land reform and national independence.
Thank you for joining me on this journey through Ireland’s rich past. Please like and subscribe, and until next time, I’m Raymond Welsh—Slán go fóill!
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