On Friday a young man of about twenty-two years of age, named Laurence Slevin, of Cloughan, King's County, was arrested under the Protection of Life, and Property Act. The arrest was made between four and five o'clock in the morning by three policemen, and the prisoner was taken to Reban station, from thence by train to Naas. He arrived about midday, and was marched from Sallins to Naas jail. He is a member of the Cloughan Land League, and is a shoemaker by occupation. A representative of the Observer visited him in the jail, but he did not, he said, know on what charge he had been arrested. When he received a copy of the warrant of arrest he gave it away to some parties at Reban railway station, as he himself, strange as it may appear, could not read, which is the more remarkable as he is very intelligent looking. .. On the night preceding his arrest some outhouses the property of a man named M'Cormick, were burned; M'Cormick himself is a member of the Land League. The only outrage of a serious nature which had recently occurred in the district was the burning of a large part of the house of a landlord named Thompson, and it might be probable that he was suspected with being connected with the affair. The tenantry asked Mr. Thompson for an abatement of rent, but he, through his agent, Mr. Lowther, refused to grant any at all, as he considered the rents were low enough. It was after this refusal that the fire took place, and as part of the dwelling was thatched the flames spread rapidly, and the destruction of property was pretty large. Slevin is a single man, and the eldest son of a widow, with a family of nine children more or less dependent on the young man under arrest. Slevin did not appear at all dejected, and was very well dressed for a person in his possession.
Kildare Observer (Naas, County Kildare, Ireland), May 28, 1881.
During evictions at Mitchellstown to-day an immense crowd stoned the agent of the estate. The Police and soldiery charged the people several times, and many of the people and several soldiers were injured.
Mr. White, Secretary of the Tullamore Land League, has been arrested for intimidating the Emergency Committee. Mr. Slevin, a farmer of King's County, has been arrested under the Protection act, charged with incendiarism.
New York (New York) Times, May 28, 1881.