Land has been the cause of some of the most vicious feuds and brutal murders in modern irish history. Often portrayed as the poor tenant farmer against powerful landlords, the real stories were often more complex. In a society where people developed what was an unhealthy obsession with land there were all too many willing to kill friends family and neighbours over it.

The sentiments which fuelled this were epitomised in John B Keane play and later an Oscar nominated movie The Field, where the central the Bull McCabe who commits murders over land says

It's my field. It's my child. I nursed it. I nourished it. I saw to its every want. I dug the rocks out of it with my bare hands and I made a living thing of it! My only want is that green grass, that lovely green grass, and you want to take it away from me, and in the sight of God I can't let you do that.

While the Bull McCabe was a fictional character that story was based on real life events. Indeed every county in Ireland had its own story of a land related murder.

This podcast tells one - a feud over a farm outside the East Cork town of Castletownroche. Taking places in the decades after the famine this dispute resulted in the deaths of four people. Buried for nearly a century and half this story is told for the first time in this two part podcast.

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A Land to Die For (Part I) 29:01 Share

Irish History Podcast

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A Land to Die For (Part I)