Thurles Meeting On Septic Tank Water & Household Tax

Hayes Hotel, Thurles, Co Tipperary

Campaigners against Septic Tank, Water, and Household Tax charges will hold a public meeting in Hayes Hotel Liberty Square, on Friday next, February 10th, beginning at 8.00pm sharp.

This event is just one of a series of such meetings planned around the country in the coming weeks.

People are being invited to attend to listen to argument as to why they should “boycott,” or voluntarily abstain from registering for this promised planned controversial taxation, which appears to target rural Ireland dwellers in particular.

It is interesting to note that the word “boycott,” first entered our English language during the Irish “Land War,” a prolonged period of civil unrest in the rural Ireland of the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s. The word derives from the surname of a land agent, one called Captain Charles Boycott, who then managed the estate of absentee landlord, Lord Erne, who owned property at Lough Mask House, in County Mayo.

Boycott was the subject of effective social ostracism, organized by the Irish Land League.  Harvests had been poor in 1880 and Lord Erne had offered his tenants a 10% reduction in their rents. In September of that year, however protesting tenants demanded a 25% reduction, which was refused. Attempts by Boycott to evict eleven tenants, for non payment of rents demanded, further exacerbated the situation.

In a speech in Ennis, Co Clare, landowner, nationalist political leader and land reform agitator, Charles Stewart Parnell, proposed that when dealing with tenants who rented or took up residence on farms where a previous tenant was evicted, rather than resorting to violence, everyone in the locality should shun them.

This advice would lead to Charles Boycott being isolated. Soon his employees stopped work in his fields and stables. Domestic staff refused to work in his house and local businessmen stopped trading with him. Even the local postman refused to deliver his mail.

Next Friday’s evenings meeting in Hayes Hotel will offer Tipperary residents a chance to speak up for themselves and their particular communities, thus demonstrating their wish not to be treated in an unfair matter.