Kent family of Bawnard

The Kents were a family of prominent Irish nationalists who were active in Castlelyons, County Cork from the 1870s until the 1930s.

At the time of the Land War the Kent family, comprising David Kent, his wife Mary (née Rice), and their nine children (seven sons & two daughters), lived in an Irish-speaking household at Bawnard House, Coole, Castlelyons, County Cork (William Kent, "For generations our family had farmed 200 acres at Bawnard").

David Kent died in 1876 (the year after his youngest child Richard was born), he was just 44 years old.

Mary Kent (née Rice) had grown up in nearby Towermore and had family living in the locality. In 1887 her nephews Austin and Richard Rice were evicted from their farm for non-payment of rent and this began a series of events which would bring the Kents to national prominence.

The Rices had initially leased the farm from the Peard family but in July 1888, it was sold to Orr McCausland, a Belfast-based landowner and their homestead was occupied by a steward and a general manager (a Scot called Robert Browne). The Kent boys and their cousins the Rices, teamed up with Father Jeremiah O’Dwyer, the parish curate, to launch a boycott against Browne. As leading players of the Castlelyons and Coolagown branch of the Irish National League, they organised a meeting at Coolagown. Addressing a crowd of nearly 300 people, Fr. O’Dwyer asked them to ensure life for the farm manager Browne if things became ‘too hot’ to handle.

In the autumn of 1889 four Kent brothers - Edmond, William, Richard and David – were amongst ten men hauled into a crowded Fermoy Courthouse, charged with orchestrating a boycott campaign. In court, Browne also told how Edmond Kent, the eldest brother, threatened him on Fermoy bridge, while David Kent had blown horns at him and called him a ‘land-grabber’ outside Coolagown Church. The second oldest Kent brother, Tom Kent, did not appear in the dock because he was in the USA (he had emigrated to Boston in 1884 and had spent the intervening years working as a church furniture maker and dabbling publishing, if he had been present he would have been tried because he had been accused of throwing eggs at Browne’s car).

The court took a dim view on the defendants and imposed some harsh sentences; Fr. O’Dwyer was sentenced to six months in prison, Edmond and William were given four months with hard labour and David was given two months with hard labour (Richard was not given a prison sentence).

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Wikipedia