In some instances, tenants were being persuaded to accept a little sum of funds to leave their homes, "cheated into believing the workhouse would choose them in". Many started clearing the poor tenants from their smaller plots and allowing the land in greater plots for over £4 which then diminished their money owed. Having turned out in the parish of Ballinrobe more than 2,000 tenants alone, he then employed the cleared land as grazing farms.