Monthly Archives: May 2024

Land Is All That Matters – GLOSSARY OF TERMS L-Z

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Land Acts

A variety of remedial land legislation was introduced in the 19th century, mostly in the last three decades, initially by William E. Gladstone in 1870 and 1881 and later by the Tory government of Lord Salisbury (and his nephews Arthur and Gerald Balfour) in 1887 and the 1890s.

Land Commission

Established in 1881 after the passage of the second Gladstone Land Act, its role went from the arbitration of rents between tenant and landlord, to direct involvement in the land purchase process when it acquired the power to buy estates and re-distribute the land to tenants who were offered loans to enable the purchases. It was re-constituted by the Irish Free State government in 1923, continued the work of land re-distribution until the 1980s, and was dissolved in 1999.

Land Courts

Established by the 1881 Land Act as an arbitrator between tenant and landlord whereby a tenant could apply to the court for a reduction in rent and the decision of the Land Court would be binding on both parties. Initial scepticism about the body gave way to a sudden wave of enthusiasm among tenant farmers when its early decisions reduced rents by an average of 15-20%. 

Land League, the

From its origins in Mayo in 1879, the Irish National Land League quickly developed, under the leadership of agrarian activists like Michael Davitt and Patrick Egan, and the presidency of Charles Stewart Parnell, into a vibrant and cohesive national pressure group intent on achieving ‘tenant right’ as well as a reduction of rent and an end to evictions. With agrarian crime levels rising in 1881 the organisation was banned in October of that year and most of its leadership arrested. Their release followed the conclusion of the unofficial ‘Kilmainham Treaty’ (qv)

Ladies Land League, the

Established by Parnell’s sisters Fanny and Anna in 1880 with the latter as the primary motivating force, the Ladies Land League (LLL) came into its own in October 1881 after the Liberal government proscribed the Land League. Anna Parnell’s organisation essentially took over the functions of its ‘brother’ organisation and did so with great efficiency and tenacity. Anna Parnell, who was far more radical than her brother Charles, and the rest of the LLL became surplus to requirements after the conclusion of the so-called ‘Kilmainham Treaty’ and the release from jail in May 1882 of her brother and the Land League leadership cadre. The LLL, because of its inherent agrarian radicalism, also became a political embarrassment to a Parnell whose focus had now shifted to the issue of Home Rule. 

Anna Parnell

Land purchase 

The transfer of land from landlord to tenant. A small element was contained in the Church Disestablishment Act of 1869 and Gladstone’s 1870 Land Act (‘The Bright Clause’). The Ashbourne Act of 1885 offered terms to landlord and tenant to encourage the process, but this was only marginally successful. The Conservative party chief secretary Arthur Balfour made another attempt in 1891 legislation but it was not until the Wyndham Act of 1903 and its subsequent amendment by Liberal chief secretary Augustine Birrell in 1909 that generous government funding led to the sale by landlords, and the subsidised purchase by tenants, on a vast scale. 

Land War, the

A campaign against excessive rents and evictions that began in Mayo in 1879. While the Land League was the public face of tenant opposition to landlord exactions during a period of worldwide economic depression, in the background secret agrarian ‘ribbon’ societies also played a significant role in forcing the passage of the 1881 Land Act and bringing William E. Gladstone to the negotiating table in the formulation of the so-called ‘Kilmainham Treaty’ (qv) which effectively brought the ‘War’ to an end.   

Landed Estates Court

The 1858 successor to the Encumbered Estates Court (qv) which took over the sale of the estates of bankrupt landlords. 

Land grabbers

The undesirable epithet applied to tenant-farmers who took up land from which the prior tenant had been evicted and, from 1919-23 to ‘squatters’ engaged in the illicit seizure of land. See also ‘grabbers’. 

Latitat

A writ or summons generally issued on the assumption that the object of the summons is in hiding. 

Middlemen

Someone who rented land from a landlord and then sub-let to others. Some middlemen were wealthy minor gentry, some were businessmen or professionals, others were farmers who worked their own land as well as subletting. On some estates there were ‘layers’ of middlemen, with, perhaps, a single middleman sub-letting to other members of a species that had become seriously endangered by the end of the 19th century and was close to extinction a hundred years later.. 

Molly Maguires 

A secret society suspected of the murder of Roscommon landlord, Denis Mahon. The term was later applied to the fraternal Ancient Order of Hibernians (a Roman Catholic counterpart of the Orange Order) and to a secret society based in the anthracite fields of the US state of Pennsylvania. 

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Major Denis Mahon

Newtownbarry

Today known as Bunclody, it was the scene in June 1831 of an affray that led to the killing of at least eighteen anti-tithe protestors by members of the Yeomanry militia. It was also the last time a Yeomanry company was used in a policing operation. 

Oakboys (see Hearts of Oak) 

Ordnance Survey

Beginning in 1825, and employing, among others, future Irish under-secretaries Thomas Drummond and Thomas Larcom, the Ordnance Survey mapped the country thoroughly for the first time since the Down Survey.  

Pastorini

The 18th century millenarian prophecies of Bishop Charles Walmsley (‘Pastorini’ was his pen-name) which predicted the demise of Protestantism in the 1820s. Walmsley’s writings influenced many of those who participated in the Rockite insurgency of the 1820s.

Bishop Charles Walmsley

Pound

An area of confinement where distrained livestock were kept prior to being auctioned. Also a unit of currency rarely if ever seen by Irish landless labourers or cottiers. 

Process server

An agent employed to serve eviction notices on tenants in arrears. As well liked and respected as a serious case of leprosy. 

Property Defence Association

A largely unionist landlord organisation established during the Land War to protect the interests of landlords against the rival tenants combination, the Land League. 

Ranch War, the

The outcome, from 1906-09, of a movement composed largely of small farmers and landless labourers, and led by Irish Parliamentary Party politicians, such as Laurence Ginnell, who campaigned against the move from tillage to pasture and the consequent reduction in the number of farms for purchase or rent. Often characterised by the illicit activity of cattle ‘driving’ (qv)

Laurence Ginnell MP

Replevy

To re-deliver distrained goods to their original owner after receiving financial guarantees. In Castle Rackrent Maria Edgeworth writes of Sir Murtagh, ‘he was always … replevying and replevying.’

Ribbonmen, the

The name by which members of secret agrarian societies came to be known by the middle of the 19th century, largely replacing the term ‘Whiteboy’. However, the Ribbonmen were, initially at least, more politicised, and emerged from the ‘Defender’ tradition in Ulster. Ribbonism also had a foothold in Dublin, unlike any of its purely rural predecessors. 

Rockites, the

A well-coordinated agrarian secret society, often driven by anti-Protestant millenarianism (see ‘Pastorini), which posed a major threat to the authorities in Munster in the 1820s. Named after the mythical ‘Captain Rock’ (qv) who ‘signed’ many of the threatening letters issued to agents, landlords and non-compliant tenants.    

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‘The Installation of Captain Rock’, Daniel Maclise 1834

Rundale

A co-operative tenurial system based on a clachán (qv) or small community in which land was held collectively and its distribution settled by local agreement. 

Rightboys, the

A largely Munster-based agrarian secret organisation of the 1780s whose main grievance was the obligation to pay tithes. The name derives from their allegiance to the mythical ‘Captain Right’.

Shanavests, the

The rivals of the Caravat (qv) secret society in a class-based conflict in Munster and south Leinster from 1806-11. The Shanavests were prosperous farmers who combined to resist the antagonism of small farmers and labourers. 

Sive (Sieve) Oultagh

The mythical guiding light of the Whiteboys whose signature was often appended to threatening letters from the organisation. Other exotic names used in this context included Joanna, Shevane Meskill and the more masculine Lightfoot, Slasher, Cropper, Echo, Fearnot and Burnstack.

Steelboys, the (see Hearts of Steel)

Terry Alts, the

A secret society that emerged in County Clare in the late 1820s, post-Rockite and pre-Tithe War and was responsible for a number of murders, the most celebrated being the killing of Captain William Blood, land agent of Lord Stradbrooke in 1831. 

Three Fs

‘Fair rent, Free sale. Fixity of tenure’. An ongoing slogan since the days of the Tenant League. Finally given legal status in Gladstone’s 1881 Land Act. 

Tithes

A form of taxation payable to the clergy of the Established Church and a frequent bone of contention, especially with members of the Roman Catholic and Presbyterian faiths. The nature of the tax varied from region to region and, for a long time, livestock farmers were exempted from the levy. The so-called ‘Tithe War’ of the 1830s led to the Tithe Rentcharge Act of 1838 which ended the anti-tithe agitation.

Tithe proctor

An agent who established crop valuations and collected tithe contributions on behalf of a Church of Ireland rector for a commission of around 10%. As welcome as gout.

A visit from the tithe proctor

Tithe farmer

Someone who reached agreement with a local rector to take on the collection of tithes on payment of an agreed sum to the clergyman. How he then made a profit was dependent on how much he could extract from those in the local parish liable for the tax. As popular as syphilis.

Tithe War 

A conflict that spawned the effective, but relatively uncoordinated movement which led to the transfer of direct responsibility for the payment of tithes from tenants to landlords. The ‘war’ began in Kilkenny in 1830 and included two notable atrocities, at Newtownbarry, Co. Wexford (qv) in June 1831 where yeomanry killed fourteen protestors and at Carrigshock, Co. Kilkenny (qv) in December 1831 where a process server and twelve policemen were killed.     

Ulster Custom 

The right of a tenant to be compensated for improvements when vacating land (either voluntarily, or as a result of eviction proceedings) or to sell his ‘interest’ in the land. Also known as ‘tenant right’ it was supposed to exist throughout Ulster, although this was often disputed by landlords, as the incoming tenant was expected to pay for the interest or fund the compensation and this tended to reduce the potential rent.  

Whiteboys. 

An agrarian secret society that originated in Tipperary in 1761 in opposition to the enclosures of common land. The movement then spread into neighbouring counties with an expanded agenda. Named for the white shirts worn over workday clothing. The movement died away by 1765 but re-emerged in 1769 in opposition to high rents, evictions and excessive levels of tithe payments. The term ‘Whiteboy’ continued to be used in the early 19th century as an umbrella term for violent agrarian activity, until it was gradually supplanted by the term ‘Ribbonism’. The 18th century legislation against agrarian crime passed in 1766, 1776 and 1787 became known as the ‘Whiteboy Acts’. 

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Whiteboy activity

Whitefeet

An offshoot of the Whiteboys, in that this was a secret agrarian society which emerged in the Carlow-Kilenny area in the 1830s in imitation of the 18th century Whiteboys. 

GLOSSARY: A-K ‘Land is all that matters: the struggle that shaped Irish history’.

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Agistment

The process of bringing livestock to pasture. In 1735 the House of Commons effectively removed the ‘tithe of agistment’ thus ensuring that beef and milch cattle were exempt from tithes. This had the effect of shifting the burden from wealthy graziers to tillage and subsistence farmers.

Approver

An accused party offering evidence against his co-conspirators in a crime, in return for full or partial amnesty.

Back to the Land

A co-operative movement that emerged in the early years of the 20th century, raised its own finance, and purchased estates for division among small farmers and landless labourers. 

Bailiff 

An official whose function was to effect the eviction of a tenant and, if required, sequestration of the tenant’s ‘removables’ (furniture etc.). 

Bessborough Commission

Appointed in 1881 to inquire into the working of the 1870 Land Act and chaired by Frederick Ponsonby, 6th Earl of Bessborough. Its books of evidence offer a valuable insight into rural Ireland during the Land War. The Commission essentially offered support for the Land League (qv)  demands for the 3Fs (qv), the only dissenting commissioner being the landlord representative, the idiosyncratic Arthur McMurough Kavanagh, the limbless former MP and Lord Lieutenant of Carlow.  

Frederick Ponsonby, 6th Earl of Bessborough

Blackfeet

A Whiteboy variant that emerged in south Leinster in the 1830s. 

Board of Works

Established in 1831 the Board of Works spent £49m on public works projects up to 1914.

Boycotting

The despatch of an obnoxious tenant, agent, landlord or ‘grabber’ (qv)  to a ‘moral Coventry’. A process of ostracization generally seen to have been initiated in 1881 but actually a longstanding tactic in Irish agrarian campaigns. Individuals were cut off by their neighbours from all social and economic intercourse. Named for the Mayo land agent Captain Charles Boycott who was its most prominent victim during the Land War of 1879-82 (qv). 

Captain Charles Boycott

Canting

The sale by auction to the highest bidder of a farm with a recently evicted tenant or a tenant in the process of being evicted. 

‘Captain Moonlight’

A (mostly) 19th century euphemism for agrarian outrages. On being jailed in October 1881 Charles Stewart Parnell famously said that his place at the helm of agrarian agitation would be taken by ‘Captain Moonlight’. 

‘Captain Rock’

The mythical figure supposedly behind the Rockite disturbances of the 1820s. During that period many threatening letters bore the signature of ‘Captain Rock’ or ‘John Rock’. 

Caravats, the

An agrarian secret society whose antagonism was aimed not at landlords as such, but at large farmers. Their activities from 1806-11 were based in south Leinster (Kilkenny) and east Munster (Limerick, Tipperary, Waterford and Cork) and were opposed by a society of wealthy farmers known as the Shanavests (qv).  

Carders, the

An early 19th century agrarian secret society that took its name from the vicious practice of carding (qv). 

Carding

An atrocious punishment meted out by members of agrarian secret societies in which nails are driven through a board and this is then drawn across the back of a victim. This method was so extreme that it was eventually abandoned as it was deprecated by most of the supporters of even militant agrarian activism. 

Caretaker

A person or persons left to occupy a house after an eviction. The function was sometimes undertaken by bailiffs (qv) or ‘emergency men’ (qv) but often, where an eviction had been carried out largely as a warning to a tenant in arrears, the tenant himself would be left in situ as caretaker.  This practice partly accounted for the disparity between permanent evictions and tenant readmissions.

Carrickshock

A townland in County Kilkenny, near Knocktopher where a fracas in December 1831 during the Tithe War led to the deaths of a process server, a dozen policemen and three anti-tithe protestors.

Cattle driving

The practice, particularly notable during the Ranch War (19060-09) (qv), of stealing cattle and ‘driving’ them a considerable distance. Used as a form of protest and intimidation during the Ranch War. 

Cess

A tax levied by county Grand Juries for the upkeep of roads and bridges. Excess levels of cess in certain counties or baronies often sparked militant action by agrarian secret societies. The word is still a term of abuse in some parts of rural Ireland, as in ‘bad cess to you!’

Clachán

The community at the centre of land held under the rundale system (qv).  

Conacre

The act of renting a small area of land and planting a single crop, generally potatoes. 

Congested Districts Board 

Established by Tory chief secretary, Arthur Balfour, in 1891 to alleviate poverty in ‘congested’ regions of high population density and few resources in the west and northwest of Ireland. The CDB was dissolved by the new Irish Free State in 1923. An integral element of the Tory policy of ‘killing Home Rule with kindness’ in the 1890s.  

‘Congests’

The name often applied to impoverished tenants in general, but in particular to those from areas under the aegis of the Congested Districts Board (qv).

Cottier

Sometimes represented as ‘cottar’, these were generally agricultural labourers or small farmers who rented small plots (c. 1 acre) and planted potatoes thereon in return for their labour. Almost wiped out by the Great Famine. 

Cowper Commission

A commission of inquiry into Irish land tenure named for its chair, the former Lord Lieutenant, Earl Cowper, and established by the Tory government of Lord Salisbury. It reported in 1887, recognising that the fall in agricultural prices since the passage of the 1881 Land Act  had reduced the ability of tenants to pay even Land Court arbitrated rents.  

7th Earl Cowper

Deasy’s Act

Legislation passed in 1860 which altered the relationship of landlord and tenant, to the benefit of the latter. Passed through parliament without amendment, its central principle was that ‘The relation of landlord and tenant shall be deemed to be founded on the express or implied contract of the parties, and not upon tenure or service.’

Devon Commission, the  

Its full title was the ‘Royal Commission on the state of the law and practice relating to the occupation of land in Ireland’. It was chaired by the Co. Limerick landlord, William Courtney, 10th Earl of Devon. The commission gathered evidence and compiled its report between 1843 and 1845. Its central recommendation, that ‘tenant right’ be formally recognised by the payment of compensation to outgoing tenants for any improvements made to their farm, was not enacted into law.   

Distraint

The seizure of farm produce or implements, for subsequent sale at auction to meet the financial obligations of tenants in arrears to their landlords.

Down Survey

The Cromwellian-era mapping of Ireland under the supervision of Sir William Petty. 

Sir William Petty

Driver

A bailiff employed to drive distrained cattle to the pound. The term could also apply to a Ranch War-era moonlighter (qv) who ‘drives’ a grazier’s cattle from pasture land onto the roads. The former was generally reviled by small tenant farmers, but operated within the law. The latter did not, but was generally revered by small tenant farmers.  

Duty days

An obligation sometimes owed by a tenant to a landlord. The tenant was required to work on a set number of days per annum. A particularly vindictive landlord would demand his duty days at a time when a tenant needed to bring in his own harvest, in order to pay his rent. The fictional Thady Quirk refers to such punishments in Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth.

‘Eleven month’ system

A device frequently used to get around the tenant-oriented land legislation of the 1880s and 1890s. Land was auctioned on an annual basis and the highest bidder was then allowed the use of the land for eleven months. The system encouraged wealthy merchants and professionals to purchase, graze and sell herds of livestock.  

Emergency men

A generic term for those offering their services as bailiffs (qv), or often as caretakers left in the houses of evicted tenants to ensure that their former occupants were unable to re-possess. The name is derived from one of the landlord bodies, the Orange Emergency Committee, which opposed the activities of the Land League during the Land War, and those of the Irish National League during the Plan of Campaign.   

Enclosure

The act of fencing off common land previously available to all members of a community. Most common land in Ireland and Britain had been enclosed by landowners by the end of the eighteenth century. 

Encumbered Estates Acts

Passed in 1848 and 1849 this legislation established the Encumbered Estates Court, which allowed the sale of the estates of landlords rendered insolvent by the Great Famine. Designed to encourage a new wave of British owners of Irish land, in fact much of the almost five million acres that changed hands went to wealthy Irish Roman Catholic landlords, often Dublin-based professional men. 

‘English tenant’

This has nothing to do with nationality but referred to a tenant who was required to pay his rent on the day it was due, rather than on a ‘gale day’ (qv) six month in arrears, as was the Irish custom. It could be used, for example, as a punishment by a landlord in the case of a tenant who had not voted as instructed in an election. He could be required to become an ‘English tenant’, i.e. immediately pay six months arrears of rent.  

Gale days

The bi-annual period during which tenants paid their rent, generally to a landlord’s agent. The two annual gale days tended to be in May and November. 

‘Grabber’

Or ‘land grabber’. Generally a tenant farmer who took over the land vacated by an evicted tenant. Many were threatened, injured or murdered. The phrase acquired particular currency during the Land War (1879-82). It later came to be applied to those illicitly seizing land during the Anglo Irish War and the subsequent Civil War.

Graziers

Farmers (and non-farmers) who rented extensive tracts of pasture land and raised cattle or sheep. This type of husbandry was anathema to small farmers and landless labourers because of the usage of what might otherwise have been arable land, available to rent. Graziers were also known (and not in a positive way) as ‘ranchers’.

‘Griffith’ valuation

Named after Richard Griffith, Commissioner of Valuation in Ireland from 1827 until 1868. Griffith was the man primarily responsible for mapping and valuing, for taxation purposes, the land of Ireland from the 1830s to the 1860s.

Richard Griffith, Commissioner of Valuation (1827-68)

Hanging gale

The first six month period (May-November or November-May) of a tenancy after which the tenant was obliged to pay his first portion of rent.  

Hearts of Oak

An 18th century agrarian secret society that emerged in Armagh in 1763 in opposition, at first, to a legal obligation on the part of tenants to work on road construction. After a few weeks of protest activities and muted violence the ‘Oakboys’ disbanded in the face of military opposition.  

Hearts of Steel

A more sustained—it continued in existence for three years—and coherent movement than the ‘Oakboys’ which emerged in Antrim and Down and was originally founded in opposition to ‘fines’ imposed on the estate of Lord Donegall on tenants who wanted to renew their leases. The ‘Steelboys’ often operated openly and they successfully attacked a Belfast barracks (1770) and Gilford Castle (1772).   

Heriot

A landlord right, deriving from an old medieval custom, to the use of a tenant’s horse at short notice. 

Houghers

An early agrarian secret society (1711-12) based in Connacht and opposed to the use of land for the purpose of grazing livestock. Named for one of their favoured methods of protest, the maiming of cattle.

Houghing 

Maiming cattle in order to intimidate their owner. The cattle would be lamed by severing their hamstring tendons. 

Improving landlords

Something of a ‘catch-all’ phrase covering everything from landlords wishing to divest themselves of tenants in order to ‘work’ their own estates, to landlords intent on either enhancing the lot of their tenants by undertaking ‘improvements’ to their land, or the introduction of progressive and more scientific farming methods. ‘Improving’ landlords (the term often appears in quotation marks to suggest a degree of historiographical scepticism of the breed) were often as welcome to the tenant as a bad toothache.   

‘Kilmainham Treaty, the’

An unofficial agreement brokered by Captain William O’Shea between the incarcerated Charles Stewart Parnell and British prime minister William E. Gladstone. The Liberal government agreed to introduce an act of parliament allowing tenants in arrears access to the newly established Land Courts, and Parnell agreed to use his ‘influence’ to end agrarian disorder and ‘outrage’. 

Captain William O’Shea