In 1850, the Tenant Right League briefly dominated Irish politics with the demand for free sale, fixity of tenure, and fair rent. ĭuring the Great Famine (1845–1849), the poorest cottiers and agricultural labourers died or were forced to emigrate, freeing up land that was purchased by larger farmers. The existence of tenant right was accepted by creditors who would extend loans with the tenant right as collateral. In the decades following the Great Famine, rises in agricultural prices were not matched by rent increases, leading to an increase in the tenant's stake in the farm, which may have risen to as much as 10–20 years of rent. This "interest" could be as much as 4–6 years rent, which incoming tenants had to pay with capital that they might otherwise have spent on their own improvements. There was a tension between English law, which protected the absolute property rights of the landlord, and Irish custom on the other hand in which the tenant enjoyed an "interest" in the property, which he could buy or sell. The Devon Commission of 1843–44 found that various forms of tenant right were practiced throughout Ireland, not just in Ulster. The Irish nationalist politician Isaac Butt pointed out the fact that Catholic Irish were tenants was worse than "the heaviest yoke of feudal servitude". Conflict between landlords and tenants arose from opposing viewpoints on such issues as land consolidation, security of tenure, transition from tillage to grazing, and the role of the market. This led landlords to take on a role of non-productive managers within the island's overall economy. Between 18, landlords extracted £340 million in rent-far exceeding tax receipts for the same period-of which only 4–5% was reinvested. In 1870, 50% of the island was owned by 750 families. Land in Ireland was concentrated into relatively few hands, many of them absentee landlords. This ratio declined over the century, but only due to emigration from rural areas and not from growth of the towns and cities. The population of Ireland was overwhelmingly rural in 1841, four-fifths of the population lived in hamlets smaller than 20 houses. This Act set the conditions for the break-up of large estates by government-sponsored purchase.Īlongside the political and legal changes, the " Long Depression" affected rent yields and landlord-tenant relations across all of Europe from the 1870s to the 1890s.īackground During the second half of the nineteenth century, Ireland suffered population loss due to emigration and the Great Famine. William O'Brien played a leading role in the 1902 Land Conference to pave the way for the most advanced social legislation in Ireland since the Union, the Land Purchase (Ireland) Act 1903. The agitation was led by the Irish National Land League and its successors, the Irish National League and the United Irish League, and aimed to secure fair rent, free sale, and fixity of tenure for tenant farmers and ultimately peasant proprietorship of the land they worked.įrom 1870, various governments introduced a series of Land Acts that granted many of the activists' demands. It may refer specifically to the first and most intense period of agitation between 18, or include later outbreaks of agitation that periodically reignited until 1923, especially the 1886–1891 Plan of Campaign and the 1906–1909 Ranch War. The Land War ( Irish: Cogadh na Talún) was a period of agrarian agitation in rural Ireland (then wholly part of the United Kingdom) that began in 1879.
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