The First Fatality of the Land War: Philip Meehan (1845–1880) by Liam Kelly is a carefully researched local history study published by Cumann Seanchais Bhreifne. It examines the circumstances surrounding the shooting of tenant farmer Philip Meehan on 14 June 1880, an event widely described by nationalist leader Michael Davitt as the first death of the Irish Land War.

The incident took place in the border region of County Leitrim and County Cavan, during a period of intense agrarian agitation led by the Irish Land League, which sought fair rents, tenant rights, and land ownership reform. Meehan was shot during a confrontation linked to eviction enforcement and land enclosure activities, when tensions between local tenants and landlord representatives escalated into violence.

The book reconstructs the event in detail, describing how a large crowd gathered in opposition to eviction-related land works and how the situation escalated into chaos and gunfire. It also examines the broader social conditions that made such violence increasingly likely in rural Ireland at the time.

Key themes include:

• The outbreak of the Irish Land War (1880–1882)
• Agrarian resistance and eviction conflict in rural Ireland
• The role of landlords, agents, and police in land enforcement
• Local political organisation and Land League influence
• Rural poverty and post-Famine social tensions
• The shooting of Philip Meehan as a symbolic turning point
• Legal and historical aftermath of the incident

Liam Kelly situates the killing within the wider transformation of Irish rural society, where tenant farmers increasingly challenged traditional landlord authority. The book also highlights how the incident was interpreted politically, particularly by nationalist figures who used Meehan’s death to illustrate the urgency of land reform.

Drawing on local archives, oral tradition, newspaper reports, and historical records, the study provides both a factual reconstruction of the event and a broader interpretation of its significance in Irish history.

It is an important work for understanding how individual acts of violence reflected wider structural conflict during one of the most turbulent periods in nineteenth-century Ireland.