his family in London just four days before. In a later biography, his son Maurice revealed that what had brought his father home was not, as reported in the papers at the time, the need to consult local leaders before he introduced a Home Rule bill. Rather, it was the attention Moore and his tenants were receiving from local Ribbonmen. A few months before his journey back to Ireland, Moore had been forwarded a copy of a note red ink that was being circulated to tenants on the outlying Ballintubber estate of his 12,481 acre property: "IMPORTANT. Notice is hereby given that any person who pays rents to landlords, agents, or bailiffs above that of ordnance valuation will at his peril mark the consequences. By order, Rory ". Moore was incensed that his public commitment to agrarian reform should count for so little. Shortly before leaving London, in a debate on the second reading of Gladstone's Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, Moore had protested that its concessions to the Three Fs (Fair rent, Fixity of tenure, and Free sale) did not go far enough to check the power of landlords to drive out tenants (old and sick) through remorseless rent increases. In Mayo, during and after the famine, many landlords had made a complete clearance of their tenants and turned their holdings into grazing farms. Moore concluded the Ballintubber Ribbonmen were simply out to blackmail him. He wrote to the local priest, a fellow protégé of MacHale's, Father Patrick Lavelle declaring that just because as an MP he advocated the rights of tenants did not mean he was going to surrender his rights as a landlord. Those who count upon taking base advantage of his political position "will find that they have mistaken their man". He would not be intimidated and he would evict every tenant who did not pay rent. It would be an act of charity to the poor, Moore wrote, if Father Lavelle would intervene. As soon as the Easter parliamentary recess began, Moore made his last return to Ireland, arriving on Good Friday, 1870. On Sunday, he attended Easter Mass at the local church in Carnacun. But on Monday, ill, he retired to his bed. He died the following afternoon of a stroke. Father Lavelle administered last rites. In 1851 Moore had married Mary, daughter of Maurice Blake, a landlord with property in counties Mayo and