Patrick Moran’s lifetime spanned the period from 1859 to 1945. He was born a year
before the outbreak of the American Civil War and died just as World War II was
ending in Europe. In that lifetime America had grown, from a country bitterly divided
North and South, into the world’s foremost economic and military power. Much of this
extraordinary growth had come about through the enormous energy and vitality of the
constant stream of immigrants entering the country during most of that period. Many
who came were Irish.
In 1841, the population of Ireland was 8,175,124. A normal rate of increase would
have made it 9,018,799 by 1851. But the census of 1851 gave the population of Ireland
as 6,552,385, or some 2,500,000 less than anticipated. About 1,500,000 emigrated
during the years 1845-49 and almost one million died of starvation and disease as a
result of the Great Potato Famine of ’45-’49. Patrick Moran was born into a country
still recovering from the Famine, one of the great disasters of human history. During the
first forty years of his life the constant flow of immigrants, in pursuit of opportunities
which were unavailable to the common people at home in Ireland, would further reduce
the population to about 4,000,000 by the end of the century. Three of his daughters,
Mary Ellen, Nora and Delia, and his sons Paddy and John (for a very brief visit) would
subsequently join the procession of immigrants to the United States. Paddy and John
returned to Ireland to settle and raise their families while Mary Ellen, Nora and Delia
established the American branch of the Morans of Lavallyroe… the McLaughlins, the
Harts and the Fahys.
On St Patrick’s Day, March 17th 1858, the year before the birth of Patrick Moran, James
Stephens and a few fellow conspirators met in Dublin and swore an oath renouncing
allegiance to the Queen of England and vowed to take up arms and fight… ’to make
Ireland an Independent Democratic Republic…’ The society was to become known as the
Irish Republican Brotherhood and the era of Fenianism in Ireland, and among many Irish
in American, had begun. It would culminate in the 1916 Easter Rising and eventually in
Irish Independence. From all accounts, the Fenian cause was always given a sympathetic
ear and its proponents a safe haven in the home of Pat Moran of Lavallyroe.
Fenianism was not the only manifestation of the Irish desire to gain independence from
England that was at work during Pat Moran’s lifetime. In 1828, after a long struggle,
Daniel O’Connell had succeeded in obtaining the passage of The Catholic emancipation
Act ion the English Parliament. This Act, in theory at least, removed the remnants of legal
discrimination against Catholics surviving from the Penal Laws which had denied them
any rights. Now they could enter the professions and they could sit in Parliament without
taking an oath abjuring certain fundamental Catholic beliefs. Parliament, of course,
was the English Parliament in which Ireland was given a number of seats following the
abolition of the Irish Parliament by the Act of Union in1800. These seats were filled by
Irish Protestant Landlords, loyal to England, dedicated for the most part of the status quo
and known as The Ascendancy. O’Connell now turned his attention and his immense
popularity with the common people of Ireland to the task of repeal of the Act of Union
and to the establishment of Home Rule. Despite his almost universal popular support
(one million people travelling on foot attended one of several great rallies on the Hill
of Tara), O’Connell was unsuccessful in his quest for Home Rule by parliamentary and
peaceful means and he steadfastly opposed violent revolution as an alternative.
In 1875, when Patrick Moran was 16 years old, Charles Stewart Parnell, an Irish
Protestant Landlord, took up the cause of Home Rule. In his maiden speech in the
English House of Commons he made the point from which he never wavered until his
death at 45 in 1891. ‘Why should Ireland be treated as a geographical fragment of
England?’ he asked. ‘Ireland is not a geographical fragment but a nation.’ No man has
ever disturbed the scene of British democratic politics so profoundly and for so long as
Parnell. In the 1880s he dominated British parliamentary life and helped bring about a
great social revolution: the change in relations between landlord and tenant in Ireland.
He also raised popular Irish national feeling to the most effective level it had achieved in
a demand for Home Rule for all Ireland. He would never achieve his goal. The scandal
that brought his downfall, and his sudden death before he could fight back, surely
changed the course of Irish history.
It is difficult today to understand the state of affairs in Ireland when Pat Moran was
growing up in Lavallyroe. The Landlord was “the master.” He could raise rents at will,
he could evict, whether rent was paid or not: if the tenant improved his holding, he
could be taxed for doing so – the rent was raised. The Landlord owned his tenant, and
his tenant’s land, and his tenant’s vote. Michael Davitt who was also born in County
Mayo had reason to know these conditions well. At the age of 5 along with his father,
mother and two sisters he was evicted from his small cabin home and it was torn down
before his eyes. The family, which had survived the famine, was able to get to Lancashire
and again survived. Michael went to work as a boy in one of the mills, joined the Irish
Republican Brotherhood and ended up- in prison. He was released in 1877 convinced
that the land of Ireland belonged to the Irish people and that Landlordism should go
forever. The time was right for what was to become known as the Land War and almost
certainly it touched the life of Patrick Moran who was then 18.
During 1876-1879 famine again threatened Irish tenant farmers but the rents were not
reduced the Landlords threatened eviction and the Parliament turned down attempt after
attempt to amend the Land Laws. The Irish people grew restive. A land agent (working
for an absentee Landlord) was shot at in County Cork. The notorious Lord Leitrim was
shot in Donegal. Rack-renting (raising rent for la d improved by the tenant) went on.
Mayo was one of the worst counties in this regard and it was there that the first organise
assault on Landlordism was made. Walter Burke bought a small estate, doubled the rent
and put a fine of half a year’s rent on the tenants. The terms were: pay or get off the
land. Davitt chose to open his campaign with this case and a huge meeting was held at
Irishtown, about four miles from Lavallyroe. Seven thousand people were present. It is
quite likely that Pat Moran was one of them. The theme of the speeches was: “the land
for the people.” As a result, the rents were reduced by twenty-five percent and the Land
Act of 1881, reluctantly agreed to by Parnell because it granted too little relief, reduced
the rents a further forty percent. Parnell appeared at another meeting in Westport, Co
Mayo and urged the tenants to: “hold a firm grip on your homesteads.” The phrase
became a rallying cry. The pressure was on. More meetings followed. Davitt founded the
national Land League at Castlebar in October 1879 and persuaded Parnell to become its
present. Process servers were prevented from serving their eviction notices. Funds were
set up to support the evicted. New tenants were not forthcoming to work the land from
which others were evicted and the League decided to fight individual cases in the English
courts thus piling up expenses to the landlord. The term “boycott” now entered the
English language so called after one Captain Boycott, agent for Lord Erne, who lived near
Ballinrobe, Co Mayo, where Paddy and Betty Moran now live. The crops were ripening
and no one came forward to reap them. In fact, no one would do anything for Captain
Boycott and his effort to import fifty labourers from the north accompanied by two
thousand solders turned into a fiasco because none of the local people would cooperate.
While England tried to suppress the activities of the League, boycotting went on
effectively and eventually Parliament had to take notice. In 1881 the Gladstone Land Act
was passed granting some concessions. In 1887, when Patrick Moran and Ellen Murphy
were married at Bekan, Co Mayo a more liberal Land Act was enacted. Eventually,
through a series of Acts of Parliament culminating in the Land Purchase Act of 1909, the
Landlords were compensated for their lands and their Irish tenants like Pat Moran were
allowed to apply their rents to the purchase of their land. The Land War which began in
county Mayo had achieved its goal.
Many other significant events of Irish history occurred during Pat Moran’s lifetime.
After many attempts a Home Rule Bill for Ireland finally passed the English Parliament
in September 1914 but was not to go into effect until the conclusion of the Great War.
The Northern Ireland Unionists strongly and vocally opposed it and threatened force
in opposition. The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB later the IRA) had little hope that
the Act would ever go into effect and decided on armed rebellion. In 1916 the shortlived
Easter Rising took place in Dublin. It had little public support at first but as the
leaders were executed, one by one, public opinion was swayed and in the Parliamentary
elections of December 1918 Sinn Fein defeated the Parliamentary Party of Ireland and,
as promised, met as Dail Eireann in Dublin in January of 1919. In March of 1920 the
first Black and Tan members of the Royal Irish Constabulary arrived to suppress the Irish
Republican Army which was by now carrying on a kind of guerrilla war to establish an
Irish Republic in support of Sinn Fein’s policy of an Independent Irish Dail or Parliament.
The ‘Troubles” were in full swing.
In a supplement to the original Moran Book, Duane Peterson has given an important
insight into how this turbulent era touched the Moran family, through an interview with
Jim Moran. A copy of that interview should be in the possession of all who received the
original book so I will not repeat it here. In July 1921 the King opened the Parliament
of Northern Ireland in Belfast. In December the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed and the
Partition of Ireland into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland, which remained a
province of England, had begun. A majority in the Irish Free State approved the treaty
in a June 1922 election but it was opposed by the IRA and the ensuing Civil War was
almost inevitable. For a year Irish men and Irish women fought each other until the IRA
decided to ‘dump arms’ and work toward their goal of a united Irish Republic through
political means. In 1926 De Valera founded the Fianna Fail party and in the General
Election of 1932 received a majority. For the next six years an ‘Economic War’ over
the payment of Land Annuities was conducted with Britain. In economic terms this
was much more costly for Ireland, England was the best and closest market for Irish
agricultural goods and cattle and now that market was closed. The resultant glut hurt
the cattle business badly and caused much hardship for the Morans who were involved
in it. In 1938 the ‘Economic War’ ended and Britain gave up military and naval rights to
Irish ports which she had claimed since the Treaty.
The final six years of Pat Moran’s life were the years of World War II in Europe and,
although Ireland remained neutral, they were years of hardship. Rationing of almost
everything was in effect. A new emigration had begun and continued for many years
as Irish men and women sought employment opportunities in England. He died in 1945
and I still have a very clear memory of his funeral as his three sons, Paddy, John and Jim
and his grandson Jack carried his coffin on their shoulders up the steep hill to the ruins
of the ancient Parish Church where he is buried. He had seen great changes in Ireland
during his 86 years.
Almost at the same moment that Pat Moran’s funeral procession wended its way up the
hill of Kiltullagh his oldest granddaughter, Helen McLaughlin, walked down the aisle
to marry John McCormick three thousand miles away in New Jersey. A new generation
of Irish American descendants of Pat and Ellen Moran was about to begin. This update
of the Morans of Lavallyroe is an effort to keep up with their ever-growing numbers as
they make their unique impression on what has become an international society. They
have distinguished themselves in most fields of human endeavour and seem to have a
common thirst and aptitude for further education. Many have earned graduate degrees,
including several Doctorates, and there is every indication that this trend will continue in
future generations.
In line with these accomplishments, it is a pleasure to note that the only son of the
oldest of the three Moran sisters who emigrated to the United States, Brother Terence
McLaughlin, was recently awarded an honorary Doctorate in Humanities by St Mary’s
University in Winona, Minnesota, in recognition of his contributions to education over
his amazing 66 year career.
*** As written by James Patrick (Seamus) Healy, 2013