The Evicted Village

Now no more than grassy outlines in the green fields straddling a small boreen, this used to be a village of 17 small houses in the townland of Fairfield Lower and part of the Florence Knox estate of Greenwood. Local tradition is that Florence Knox retired to a smaller house in Fairfield Lower, within view of the present Ball-Alley and her brothers took over managing her affairs.

One morning she was roused from the bed by her maid Onie, to say that something terrible was happening in the nearby village and she needed to attend immediately. Running down the road, with smoke heavy in the air she encountered her brother John Henry, returning in his carriage and beyond him the thatch of the seventeen cabins blazed. He had evicted the entire village. 'I am ashamed to meet you John' a distraught Florence cried out. John Henry coldly looked down at her and warned, 'You'd better be careful sister, or your place could be next'.

Little evidence survives as to what happened but the local Fairfield tenants did relate the fact of these cruel evictions to several authorities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The lands, became part of a large 'ranch' of land of the Knox's and was known thereafter as 'Ballùr' or the new townland.