nland of
Tibarney, in common, a map of which hung, if I mistake not, for some
time in the Library of the House of Commons. This last-named spot
consisted of 164 statute acres, divided into 222 lots among eleven
tenants, who cultivated alternate ridges and patches in the same
field. Whether held by small tenants or landlords or of middlemen or
by small proprietors, the land was always in the same state of
confusion.

On portions of the Blennerhasset estate previously spoken of, and on
the Commons of Ardfert, the effect may be studied of influences
against which the modern Kerry landlord has been in many cases
striving for the whole of his lifetime. Half a century ago the advice
to "neither a borrower nor a lender be," was systematically ignored.
It is curious to hear that two eminent patriots of the period, Daniel
O'Connell and the Knight of Kerry, were both middlemen, and in the
case of Cahirciveen had one of the Blennerhassets as a co-middleman
under Trinity College, and that the compact was only finally annulled
by the resolution of the latter to have no more to do with it. The
great "Liberator" considered as a middleman appears in an odd light,
but he was a liberal specimen of the genus, and with his partners
supplied Cahirciveen with previously unheard-of drainage and pavement.
At the same time the ends of the Island of Valentia were leased by
Maurice Fitzgerald, Knight of Kerry, the friend of Castlereagh and
Wellington, to other middlemen, and it seemed that the work of
confusion could go no further.

The Island of Valentia was, I was informed, a favourable spot on which
to study the operation of paternal government. Sir Peter Fitzgerald,
the late Knight of Kerry, had enjoyed unbounded popularity, and had
employed his personal influence to raise the population under his care
in the social scale. When he had retaken the lands leased to Sir James
O'Connell or his ancestor, he found certain lowlands, notably that of
Bally Hearny, among a number of small holders; but the patches held by
each tenant were oddly distributed. Three men held farms of thirty
acres each, made up of detached lots completely separate one from the
other, and scattered broadcast over the area of the townlands; while
another man's farm of the same area extended from the sea at one end
to the top of the mountain at the other, measuring one mile and
fourteen perches in length, with an average width of twenty perches.
After some difficulties had b