Educating Julie Walters about her radical Irish Land League ancestor

Actress Julie Walters has told of her shock at hearing that her radical Irish great grandfather was briefly jailed on "trumped-up" murder charges because he fought against land eviction.

In the upcoming series, Who Do You Think You Are? the Educating Rita and Mamma Mia star is stunned by a police report from 1884 alleging her mother’s maternal grandfather, Anthony Clarke, had been running around with a knife causing serious injury to a 75-year-old taxi driver who died days later.

However, it emerged that the Mayo tenant farmer — who had been on a list of Land League leaders wanted by the British — had the charges dropped as he had merely exchanged cross words with the driver.

Walters, who was initially delighted to learn her activist relative was one of the first members of the Land League, said she was greatly relieved to learn he was not a murderer.

“I’m so relieved he didn’t murder anyone,” she said. “Anthony Clarke, I have to write a script about him. What a life he has had.”

The murder charge was later dropped to common assault and the case dismissed as there was no evidence of a knife, knife wounds, or even any bruises at the inquest, which concluded the driver had died from natural causes or a stroke.

Historian Heather Laird concluded on the programme that the Land League activist who had recently returned to Westport from a fund-raising trip to American was simply targeted by the authorities.

“What is interesting is if there was an injury on the body it would be reported in the inquest,” said Dr Laird after reading a newspaper report from the inquest.

“What the witnesses say is James Joyce, the taxi driver, was driving through the town and Anthony Clarke crosses over and says something. All of the witnesses say James Joyce carried on down through the town.”

She agreed with the actress that the initial murder charged sounds like it was “trumped-up”.

“We know already they had wanted to imprison him and clearly the charges have to be viewed in terms of that desire to get him,” said Dr Laird. “Sounds as if there was a little bit of aggro on the street and he finds himself in prison charged [with murder].

“The judge simply dismisses the case and tells him in future he should behave himself.”

In the BBC show, the actress told of her deep pride in her great grandfather, who was one of the very first members of the Land League formed in 1879, which campaigned for more than 40 years for impoverished tenant farmers to have the right to own their own land.

He spoke out against evictions and crippling rents despite being a tenant of one powerful landlord, Roger Palmer, who owned more than 80,000 acres in Co Mayo alone.

The Land League eventually won tenant farmers the right to buy land and, by 1917, most had their own plots. Sadly, Clarke died in 1918 without having benefited from the reforms he fought for.

In 1923 — a year after Ireland won its independence — Palmer was forced to sell the estate back to his tenants.

“One of the great sadnesses of this story is that Anthony Clarke died without being able to buy his land which he had fought for 40 years,” said Ms Walters.

“But his legacy is far greater than that bit of land. He changed history here. A man I have never met and knew nothing of, that I can feel so involved with him. I feel something for him which is an extraordinary thing.”

* Who Do You Think You Are? returns to BBC1 next Thursday at 9pm with Julie Walters’ episode.