Whether Mary Spring Ric ever had similar hopes of belonging and similar realisations of difference is not known.  Mount Trenchard was not burned. And the estate correspondence which survives from the early post independence period presents a family, the aged second Lord Mounteagle and then his son, Thomas, quietly maintaining an estate which still has some local economic, if not social, significance, but which is being subtly and continually opposed.  So the terms on which staff were employed were generous, but clearly and authoritatively stated; a gardener in 1924 is to get £1.10 a week , a free cottage , two tons o coal annually, two pints of milk daily, potatoes and vegetables from the garden for himself and his family. One month's notice is to be given on either side.  In 1926 the stated aims for the garden are modest; ' Our object is to grow enough vegetables etc for the house and to so manage the rest as to reduce expenses as far as possible'.  There is some correspondence between the All Ireland Town Tenants' League and the estate in 1924.  The league was representing Foynes tenants who wished to buy their cottages.  It mixed caution - ' we respectfully suggest...' - with firmness - the estate did not want to sell the land holdings, only the houses. But the league insisted on its own terms, citing the example of what was happening elsewhere.  Thus a national organisation could break into local power bases.  Another interesting correspondence arose when John Madigan a tenant who had fought in the first World War and now found himself living in a deteriorating hut which had been erected in the grounds during that war, asked for alternative accommodation in 1928.  Emboldened perhaps by his experiences in the war and supported in some measure by new government grants he was persistent, eventually obtaining a grant from the estate to build his own house and then a loan to cover him until the government gave him a grant.  He was up against the experience and suave manner of the Monteagle agent who additionally seemed to have a sure business sense.  The agent wrote to third Lord Monteagle (then forty five and only two years at Mount Trenchard) ' I think this is a case in which reasonable assistance should be given, but from a business point of view the building of houses for occupation on a tenancy basis is , I think, a disastrous policy, and Madigan, though in receipt of good wages from the oil company says he could only repay the cost at the rate of £9 a year. '  Which received a laconic . ' I entirely agree'. from Mont eagle.