John George Adair (3 March 1823– 4 May, 1885), sometimes known as Jack Adair, born in

County Laois County Laois ( ; gle, Contae Laoise) is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and in the province of Leinster. It was known as Queen's County from 1556 to 1922. The modern county takes its name from Loígis, a medie ...

, Ireland, was a Scots-Irish businessman and landowner, financier of JA Ranch in the Texas Panhandle. Adair had made his fortune in Ireland buying up estates bankrupt after the Irish potato great famine. In 1866 Adair made his first visit to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and established a brokerage firm in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

for the purpose of placing British loans in America at higher interest rates than those in Britain. Together with his business partner Charles Goodnight, Adair established the JA Ranch, the first cattle ranch in the Texas panhandle in 1877 in the Palo Duro Canyon area. In 1867, at a ball given in honor of Congressman J. C. Hughes, Adair met Mrs. Cornelia Wadsworth Ritchie, whom he married in 1869. He is buried at Rathdaire Protestant Parish Church,

Ballybrittas Ballybrittas (, IPA: �bˠalʲəˈbʲɾʲɪt̪ˠaːʃ is a small village in the northeast of County Laois, Ireland situated on the R445 about 5 km SW of Monasterevin, County Kildare. Formerly on the N7 Dublin - Limerick road, the village ...

Black Jack Adair

Adair is infamous for the evictions of forty-seven families in Derryveagh, County Donegal, Ireland, "during

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...

br>
" The evictions which began in April 1861, had resulted that overnight, 244 men, women and children were evicted from their homes and left to wander the roads seeking shelter. They were known as the "Derryveagh Evictions". It cleared 11,600 acres of mountainous land in proximity to what is now

Glenveagh Glenveagh ( ; ) is the second-largest national park in Ireland. Located in County Donegal, it includes Glenveagh Castle grounds, Lough Veagh, and much of the Derryveagh Mountains. National parks in Ireland conform to IUCN standards. Geograp ...

National Park. It earned him the title "Black Jack Adair". It has been said that "more than 150 screaming children and their parents were ordered off the property." Some claim, the evictions were part of Adair's efforts to beautify the land about the castle and improve its view. It has motivated the

Donegal Donegal may refer to: County Donegal, Ireland * County Donegal, a county in the Republic of Ireland, part of the province of Ulster * Donegal (town), a town in County Donegal in Ulster, Ireland * Donegal Bay, an inlet in the northwest of Ireland b ...

poet

William Allingham William Allingham (19 March 1824 – 18 November 1889) was an Irish poet, diarist and editor. He wrote several volumes of lyric verse, and his poem "The Faeries" was much anthologised. But he is better known for his posthumously published ''Dia ...

to write the poem
The Eviction

References

{{Authority control 1823 births 1885 deaths People from County Laois