Community to honour priest who helped inspire Land League

A community plans to honour a defiant former parish priest whose eviction from the parochial house in the late 1800s helped inspire the Land League movement in Cork.

A Mass will be celebrated and a plaque unveiled in Castlelyons in north Cork on Sunday in honour of Fr Thomas Ferris, who served as parish priest from 1880 until his death in 1891.

He was evicted from the parochial house in 1883 for refusing to pay the demanded rent and lived in a hut, built on church grounds by parishioners, until his death eight years later.