3-071-048 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The State of Ireland: posting the government proclamation in Connemara, 1881. 'Our Special Artist...came to a place where the police were engaged in posting up the Government proclamation, declaring the Land League illegal, and warning the people that any of them would be liable to punishment if they continued to belong to the League, or to aid in its operations. There were but three police-constables, one of whom was in the act of pasting the placard on the face of the rock. An old horse and cart, with a load of turf, had been left standing in the road, while its owner and a couple of country women, returning from cutting turf on the neighbouring bogs, had stopped to inquire...what it was all about. The scene around was one of the wildest character;...stretching out before them was the broad expanse of Lough Fee, and from the distant shore the mountains rose almost perpendicularly...all around were mountains, more or less precipitous...as far as the eye could see, there were only a couple of cabins visible, and sheep grazing on the mountain side. The scene was lonely and desolate in the extreme, so that one could not but feel it was strange to display a Government proclamation in such a place, where few human beings were likely to see it'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.