Irish Land Commission
Encyclopedia
The Irish Land Commission (or simply Land Commission) was created in 1881 as a rent fixing commission by the Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881, also known as the second Irish Land Act. For a century it was the body responsible for re-distributing farmland in Ireland
.
to tenant
. This was a response to the turbulent Land War
that had started in 1879. It was rapidly enacted by the government of Lord Salisbury, was funded initially with £5,000,000, and was designed to avert support for the Irish Parliamentary Party
, given the larger number of voters allowed by the Reform Act 1884, before the IPP entered its alliance with William Ewart Gladstone
in 1886.
The Commission eventually transferred 13.5 million acres (55,000 km²) by 1920. Following the Land Conference
of December 1902 arranged by George Wyndham
(a conservative minister and Chief Secretary for Ireland
, but also descended from Lord Edward FitzGerald
), the revolutionary Wyndham Land (Purchase) Act 1903 was orchestrated through parliament by William O'Brien
MP, which provided government finance to buy out freeholds, with the former tenant farmers paying back the capital over 68 years. This was managed by the Land Commission, along with ancillary work such as compiling statistics. Valuations were reckoned on a "years purchase" (Y.P.) basis, the price being a multiple of (perhaps 16 times) the annual rent, instead of the discounted cash flow
method used today. The Commission had to supervise the haggling process and find the fairest multiple for every transfer. The loans issued by government were resold in the capital markets as "Land Bonds".
By 1908 the emerging problem was whether the new owners would be economically viable on their small farms. Michael McDonnell commented that - "The breaking up of the grazing lands, which in many instances the landlords are keeping back from the market, has not met with much success under the Act, and it is difficult to see how compulsion is to be avoided if the country is to be saved from the economically disastrous position of having established in it a number of occupying owners on tenancies which are not large enough to secure to them a living wage."
It was realised by now that existing rural poverty arose from small farm sizes, yet the Acts' procedures and limits also tended to keep farm sizes down. The aim had been to create "peasant proprietors" owning what were usually small farms. By definition the activists in the 1880s Land War period had been poorer and more desperate, and few came from larger prosperous farms. This remained a matter of policy debate for the rest of the Commission's existence; generally it continued to create new small units by breaking up larger units that had more commercial potential. Larger commercial farmers were characterised as "landlords" or "grazers" simply because they had more land than the average.
A further Land Act in 1909 fostered by the liberal Chief Secretary for Ireland
Augustine Birrell
allowed for land to be bought by the Commission by compulsory purchase. In 1915 Birrell confirmed in parliament that all Irish land transfers from 1885 to the end of 1914 had cost the British government £91,768,450, and the tenants had invested a further £1,584,516.
in 1925, and the activities of the Land Commission were finally abolished in 1935. Some remaining tenants who had chosen not to exercise their right to buy their farms formed the Unbought Tenants' Association
.
in 1922, the Commission was reconstituted by the Land Law (Commission) Act, 1923, which also dissolved the Congested Districts Board. Provision was made for compulsory purchase of land owned by a non-Irish citizen. Untenanted land could now be compulsorily purchased and divided out to local families; this was applied unevenly across the country, with some large estates surviving if the owners could show that their land was being actively farmed.
From 1923 the amounts outstanding were paid to the British government as "land annuities", accruing in a Land Purchase Fund. This was fixed at £250,000 annually in 1925. In December 1925 William Cosgrave lamented that there were already: "250,000 occupiers of uneconomic holdings, the holdings of such a valuation as did not permit of a decent livelihood for the owners". Despite this, his government continued to subdivide larger landholdings, primarily to gain electoral support.
The Land Act 1933, passed on a vote of 70-39, allowed the Minister for Finance to divert the annuities for local government projects. This was a factor that caused the "Economic war"
in 1933-38, and was mutually resolved by a one-off payment of £10m. to Britain in 1938. From 1932 the government argued strongly that Irish farmers should no longer be obliged for historic reasons
to pay Britain for Irish land, but when Britain had passed out of the payment system it illogically still required farmers to continue to pay their annuities to it as before.
In 1983 the Commission ceased acquiring land; this signified the start of the end of the commission's reform of Irish land ownership, though freehold transfers of farmland still had to be signed off by the Commission into the 1990s. The commission was dissolved on March 31, 1999 by the Irish Land Commission (Dissolution) Act, 1992 and most of the remaining liabilities and assets were transferred to the Minister for Agriculture and Food. Many relevant historical records are held by the National Archives of Ireland
.
The Commission, whilst often regarded as the champion of land ownership for those who used it, and social justice, was not without controversy. In particular its subdivision of land into uneconomic units has had a lasting effect, as well as the destruction of fine landlords' residences such as Monellan Castle
and Shanbally Castle
with Government approval. As farming became more mechanized from the 1930s foreign investment in commercial farms was discouraged, reducing overall farm output. Often the buyers found it hard to earn enough to live a good life, as found in the poems of Patrick Kavanagh
. The Dáil reports from the 1920s to the 1960s frequently include questions about the division of former estates, and the acquisition of land with public finance on favourable terms for constituents via the Land Commission was understood as a way for politicians to gain electoral support.
, and in Coalition governments by Joseph Blowick
, the leader of Clann na Talmhan
.
Under the 1923 Act busier farmers had to rent extra land under an 11-month or seasonal "conacre" system, as longer arrangements could cause an owner to lose his farm by compulsory purchase by the Land Commission. While there were now over 200,000 Irish landowners compared to several thousand in the 1800s, the basic term for the use of land had reverted back to the norm of the 1860s, with no rights to renew a lease and no incentive to improve rented land. By 1980 some 860000 acres (3,480.3 km²) were rented annually under conacre, suggesting a new imbalance between mere ownership and the more active farmers.
The Lands Act 1965 was passed to restrict new foreign investment in agriculture, some of which was speculatively based upon Ireland's imminent entry to the European Economic Community
that eventually occurred in 1973. The EEC's "Four Freedoms"
allowed for unlimited investment anywhere in the EEC by any citizen of an EEC member state. This naturally undermined the ethos of the Land Commission, which had processed a further 807000 acres (3,265.8 km²) since 1923. By the early 1970s half of open market land purchases were by non-farmers, and half of those were to buy small sites, typically for building bungalow
s.
By the 1980s, just before its reform, the Land Commission came under the Department of Lands, which was in turn a part of the Department of Agriculture. The Department of Lands was seen as an overgrown entity, employing 750 people in 1983; its budget of IR£
15m included IR£8m for administration costs and only IR£7m for actual land purchase or division. Further purchases were suspended that year by Paul Connaughton.
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
.
UK Land Acts
With the Ashbourne Act 1885 the commission developed into a tenant-purchasing commission and assisted in the agreed transfer of freehold farmland from landlordLandlord
A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant . When a juristic person is in this position, the term landlord is used. Other terms include lessor and owner...
to tenant
Leasehold estate
A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to land or property in which a lessee or a tenant holds rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord....
. This was a response to the turbulent Land War
Land War
The Land War in Irish history was a period of agrarian agitation in rural Ireland in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s. The agitation was led by the Irish National Land League and was dedicated to bettering the position of tenant farmers and ultimately to a redistribution of land to tenants from...
that had started in 1879. It was rapidly enacted by the government of Lord Salisbury, was funded initially with £5,000,000, and was designed to avert support for the Irish Parliamentary Party
Irish Parliamentary Party
The Irish Parliamentary Party was formed in 1882 by Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nationalist Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons at...
, given the larger number of voters allowed by the Reform Act 1884, before the IPP entered its alliance with William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...
in 1886.
Land Conference
The Land Conference was a successful conciliatory negotiation held in the Mansion House in Dublin, Ireland between 20 December 1902 and 4 January 1903. In a short period it produced a unanimously agreed report recommending an amiable solution to the long waged land war between tenant farmers and...
of December 1902 arranged by George Wyndham
George Wyndham
George Wyndham PC was a British Conservative politician, man of letters, noted for his elegance, and one of The Souls.-Background and education:...
(a conservative minister and Chief Secretary for Ireland
Chief Secretary for Ireland
The Chief Secretary for Ireland was a key political office in the British administration in Ireland. Nominally subordinate to the Lord Lieutenant, from the late 18th century until the end of British rule he was effectively the government minister with responsibility for governing Ireland; usually...
, but also descended from Lord Edward FitzGerald
Lord Edward FitzGerald
Lord Edward FitzGerald was an Irish aristocrat and revolutionary. He was the fifth son of the 1st Duke of Leinster and the Duchess of Leinster , he was born at Carton House, near Dublin, and died of wounds received in resisting arrest on charge of treason.-Early years:FitzGerald spent most of his...
), the revolutionary Wyndham Land (Purchase) Act 1903 was orchestrated through parliament by William O'Brien
William O'Brien
William O'Brien was an Irish nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
MP, which provided government finance to buy out freeholds, with the former tenant farmers paying back the capital over 68 years. This was managed by the Land Commission, along with ancillary work such as compiling statistics. Valuations were reckoned on a "years purchase" (Y.P.) basis, the price being a multiple of (perhaps 16 times) the annual rent, instead of the discounted cash flow
Discounted cash flow
In finance, discounted cash flow analysis is a method of valuing a project, company, or asset using the concepts of the time value of money...
method used today. The Commission had to supervise the haggling process and find the fairest multiple for every transfer. The loans issued by government were resold in the capital markets as "Land Bonds".
By 1908 the emerging problem was whether the new owners would be economically viable on their small farms. Michael McDonnell commented that - "The breaking up of the grazing lands, which in many instances the landlords are keeping back from the market, has not met with much success under the Act, and it is difficult to see how compulsion is to be avoided if the country is to be saved from the economically disastrous position of having established in it a number of occupying owners on tenancies which are not large enough to secure to them a living wage."
It was realised by now that existing rural poverty arose from small farm sizes, yet the Acts' procedures and limits also tended to keep farm sizes down. The aim had been to create "peasant proprietors" owning what were usually small farms. By definition the activists in the 1880s Land War period had been poorer and more desperate, and few came from larger prosperous farms. This remained a matter of policy debate for the rest of the Commission's existence; generally it continued to create new small units by breaking up larger units that had more commercial potential. Larger commercial farmers were characterised as "landlords" or "grazers" simply because they had more land than the average.
A further Land Act in 1909 fostered by the liberal Chief Secretary for Ireland
Chief Secretary for Ireland
The Chief Secretary for Ireland was a key political office in the British administration in Ireland. Nominally subordinate to the Lord Lieutenant, from the late 18th century until the end of British rule he was effectively the government minister with responsibility for governing Ireland; usually...
Augustine Birrell
Augustine Birrell
Augustine Birrell PC, KC was an English politician, barrister, academic and author. He was Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1907 to 1916, resigning in the immediate aftermath of the Easter Rising.-Early life:...
allowed for land to be bought by the Commission by compulsory purchase. In 1915 Birrell confirmed in parliament that all Irish land transfers from 1885 to the end of 1914 had cost the British government £91,768,450, and the tenants had invested a further £1,584,516.
Dáil decree 1920
During the Irish War of Independence some farms were seized, and in June 1920 the Dáil issued a decree stating that all claims to land should not be considered until after the end of the war.Northern Ireland
The Land Acts were varied in Northern IrelandNorthern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
in 1925, and the activities of the Land Commission were finally abolished in 1935. Some remaining tenants who had chosen not to exercise their right to buy their farms formed the Unbought Tenants' Association
Unbought Tenants' Association
The Unbought Tenants' Association was an agrarian political party in Northern Ireland in the 1920s. Under the Irish Land Acts, most farmers in the preceding decades had acquired the freehold to their farms; the Association represented the interests of remaining tenant farmers...
.
Irish Land Acts
On the formation of the Irish Free StateIrish Free State
The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...
in 1922, the Commission was reconstituted by the Land Law (Commission) Act, 1923, which also dissolved the Congested Districts Board. Provision was made for compulsory purchase of land owned by a non-Irish citizen. Untenanted land could now be compulsorily purchased and divided out to local families; this was applied unevenly across the country, with some large estates surviving if the owners could show that their land was being actively farmed.
From 1923 the amounts outstanding were paid to the British government as "land annuities", accruing in a Land Purchase Fund. This was fixed at £250,000 annually in 1925. In December 1925 William Cosgrave lamented that there were already: "250,000 occupiers of uneconomic holdings, the holdings of such a valuation as did not permit of a decent livelihood for the owners". Despite this, his government continued to subdivide larger landholdings, primarily to gain electoral support.
The Land Act 1933, passed on a vote of 70-39, allowed the Minister for Finance to divert the annuities for local government projects. This was a factor that caused the "Economic war"
Anglo-Irish Trade War
The Anglo-Irish Trade War was a retaliatory trade war between the Irish Free State and the United Kingdom lasting from 1932 until 1938...
in 1933-38, and was mutually resolved by a one-off payment of £10m. to Britain in 1938. From 1932 the government argued strongly that Irish farmers should no longer be obliged for historic reasons
Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...
to pay Britain for Irish land, but when Britain had passed out of the payment system it illogically still required farmers to continue to pay their annuities to it as before.
In 1983 the Commission ceased acquiring land; this signified the start of the end of the commission's reform of Irish land ownership, though freehold transfers of farmland still had to be signed off by the Commission into the 1990s. The commission was dissolved on March 31, 1999 by the Irish Land Commission (Dissolution) Act, 1992 and most of the remaining liabilities and assets were transferred to the Minister for Agriculture and Food. Many relevant historical records are held by the National Archives of Ireland
National Archives of Ireland
The National Archives of Ireland is the official repository for the state records of the Republic of Ireland. Established by the National Archives Act 1986, it came into existence in 1988, taking over the functions of the State Paper Office and the Public Record Office of Ireland. The National...
.
The Commission, whilst often regarded as the champion of land ownership for those who used it, and social justice, was not without controversy. In particular its subdivision of land into uneconomic units has had a lasting effect, as well as the destruction of fine landlords' residences such as Monellan Castle
Monellan Castle
Monellan Castle was a large castellated mansion, in Killygordon, Co. Donegal, Ireland. It was constructed for the during the 18th century for the De Lap family, a British military family who acquired the estate in return for services rendered to the crown...
and Shanbally Castle
Shanbally Castle
Shanbally Castle was built for Cornelius O'Callaghan, the first Viscount Lismore, in around 1810. It was the largest house built in Ireland by the noted English architect John Nash. The castle—located near Clogheen, South Tipperary—was acquired by the Irish Land Commission in 1954...
with Government approval. As farming became more mechanized from the 1930s foreign investment in commercial farms was discouraged, reducing overall farm output. Often the buyers found it hard to earn enough to live a good life, as found in the poems of Patrick Kavanagh
Patrick Kavanagh
Patrick Kavanagh was an Irish poet and novelist. Regarded as one of the foremost poets of the 20th century, his best known works include the novel Tarry Flynn and the poems Raglan Road and The Great Hunger...
. The Dáil reports from the 1920s to the 1960s frequently include questions about the division of former estates, and the acquisition of land with public finance on favourable terms for constituents via the Land Commission was understood as a way for politicians to gain electoral support.
Policy debates and changes
From 1940 a minority in Fianna Fáil and Coalition cabinets consistently argued for larger farms to be encouraged, instead of sponsoring new small farmers that often had too little capital, skills or enthusiasm. This was successfully opposed for social and political reasons by Éamon de ValeraÉamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera was one of the dominant political figures in twentieth century Ireland, serving as head of government of the Irish Free State and head of government and head of state of Ireland...
, and in Coalition governments by Joseph Blowick
Joseph Blowick
Joseph Blowick was an Irish politician. He was first elected to Dáil Éireann in 1943 as a Clann na Talmhan Teachta Dála for Mayo South. He succeeded Michael Donnellan as leader of the party in 1944. Blowick was appointed to the Cabinet in the two Inter-Party governments, serving under John A....
, the leader of Clann na Talmhan
Clann na Talmhan
Clann na Talmhan , abbreviated CnaT, was an Irish agrarian political party active between 1939 and 1965.- Formation and Growth :Clann na Talmhan was founded on 29 June 1939 in Athenry, County Galway, in the wake of the breakdown of unification talks between the Irish Farmers Federation and...
.
Under the 1923 Act busier farmers had to rent extra land under an 11-month or seasonal "conacre" system, as longer arrangements could cause an owner to lose his farm by compulsory purchase by the Land Commission. While there were now over 200,000 Irish landowners compared to several thousand in the 1800s, the basic term for the use of land had reverted back to the norm of the 1860s, with no rights to renew a lease and no incentive to improve rented land. By 1980 some 860000 acres (3,480.3 km²) were rented annually under conacre, suggesting a new imbalance between mere ownership and the more active farmers.
The Lands Act 1965 was passed to restrict new foreign investment in agriculture, some of which was speculatively based upon Ireland's imminent entry to the European Economic Community
European Economic Community
The European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) The European Economic Community (EEC) (also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking world, renamed the European Community (EC) in 1993The information in this article primarily covers the EEC's time as an independent...
that eventually occurred in 1973. The EEC's "Four Freedoms"
Internal Market (European Union)
The European Union's Internal Market seeks to guarantee the free movement of goods, capital, services, and people – the EU's four freedoms – within the EU's 27 member states.The Internal Market is intended to be conducive to increased competition, increased specialisation, larger...
allowed for unlimited investment anywhere in the EEC by any citizen of an EEC member state. This naturally undermined the ethos of the Land Commission, which had processed a further 807000 acres (3,265.8 km²) since 1923. By the early 1970s half of open market land purchases were by non-farmers, and half of those were to buy small sites, typically for building bungalow
Bungalow
A bungalow is a type of house, with varying meanings across the world. Common features to many of these definitions include being detached, low-rise , and the use of verandahs...
s.
By the 1980s, just before its reform, the Land Commission came under the Department of Lands, which was in turn a part of the Department of Agriculture. The Department of Lands was seen as an overgrown entity, employing 750 people in 1983; its budget of IR£
Irish pound
The Irish pound was the currency of Ireland until 2002. Its ISO 4217 code was IEP, and the usual notation was the prefix £...
15m included IR£8m for administration costs and only IR£7m for actual land purchase or division. Further purchases were suspended that year by Paul Connaughton.