A Murderer's Country Joyce County, Galway, During Ireland's Land War (1879-1882)

The Land War (1879-1882) was a time of great agitation in Ireland, much of it directed against Irish landlords and the British Crown. Violence associated with the land-reform movement, led by Michael Davitt and Charles Stewart Parnell, and the implementation of boycotting and its enforced compliance, became commonplace. A harbinger of the violence in Galway was the assassination of Lord Leitrim in County Donegal. But some of the worst outrages took place in Joyce Country, in the heart of County Galway. During the three years of the Land War, Lord Mountmorres of Ebor Hall, Joseph Huddy, bailiff to Arthur Guinness of Ashford Castle, and his grandson, John Huddy, and five members of the Maamtrasna Joyce family were all murdered in Galway, a place that became known as "A Murderer's Country."