ranch war

ranch war (1906–9), a campaign of agrarian protest directed against large‐scale stock rearing, at its strongest in Cos. Meath, Westmeath, Galway, Roscommon, and Clare. The main tactic used was ‘cattle driving’, in which herds were illegally scattered or taken away, combined with boycotting and a certain amount of intimidation and damage to property. The agitation was vigorously supported by Lawrence Ginnell, Nationalist MP for Westmeath North and a leading figure in the United Irish League, and by a handful of other political representatives. In general, however, the Nationalist party and even the UIL, while condemning graziers as a major cause of rural poverty and depopulation, were unwilling to support effective action against a powerful rural interest whose members were in many cases pillars of the local nationalist establishment. In this sense the ranch war illustrated both the failure of the Land Acts to fulfil the aspirations of the landless and land poor, especially in the west, and the limits of the agrarian radicalism professed by nationalist leaders.