From the time that the blight first came on the potatoes in Ireland in 1845, armed and masked men dubbed Molly Maguires had been raiding the houses of people deemed to be taking advantage of the rural poor. On some occasions, they represented themselves as "Molly's Sons," sent by their mother, to carry out justice; on others, a man attired as a woman, introducing "herself" as Molly Maguire, demanding redress for wrongs inflicted on her children. The raiders might stipulate the maximum price at which provisions were to be sold, warn against the eviction of tenants, or demand that an evicted...