Land War
Land War | |||
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Part of Absentee landlords | |||
Goals |
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Methods | Rent strikes, boycotts, political demonstrations | ||
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The Land War (
From 1870, various governments introduced a series of
Alongside 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.
Background
The population of Ireland was overwhelmingly rural; in 1841, four-fifths of the population lived in
The
During the
Agrarian crimes were rising during the late 1870s, from 135 in 1875 to 236 two years later. At the same time emigration (which acted as a pressure valve for political tension) decreased by more than half.
The west of Ireland was hit by the 1879 famine, a combination of heavy rains, poor yields and low prices that brought widespread hunger and deprivation.[21] Compounded by the reduction in opportunities for outside income, especially seasonal agricultural income in Great Britain, many smallholders were faced with hunger and unable to pay their rent.[22][23] Some landlords offered rent abatement, while others refused on the grounds that their tenants were participating in anti-landlord agitation.[24] Irish historian Paul Bew notes that five of the largest landlords in Connacht also refused to contribute any money to relief funds, despite collecting more than £80,000 annually in rent.[7] According to historians such as William Vaughan and Phillip Bull, the serious agricultural recession combined with a unified nationalist leadership set the stage to produce a powerful and lasting popular movement.[25]
Chronology
Land League (1879–1881)
The Land War began on 20 April 1879 at a mass meeting in Irishtown, County Mayo organised by local and Dublin-based activists, led by Davitt and James Daly.[26][27] The activists tried to mobilize an alliance of tenant farmers, shopkeepers and clergy in favour of land reform. Although the clergy refused to participate, some 7,000 to 13,000 people attended the meeting, having come from all parts of Mayo and counties Roscommon and Galway. The main issue was rent, which was typically paid in the spring; due to the poor harvest tenants could not afford to pay and many had been threatened with eviction.[28] The crowd was guided and led into position by local Fenians—recruited by Davitt in an earlier trip with help from local IRB leader Pat Nally—even though the IRB council refused to sanction agrarian activism. Speakers included John O'Connor Power MP, Fenian Thomas Brennan, Glasgow-based activist John Ferguson, and Daly.[29]
Local Fenians organised meetings, at
Initially, the movement was non-sectarian in character and Protestant tenants also took part in meetings.[36] The focus of the leadership shifted from agitation to organization to harness the new energy for the nationalist cause.[37] On 16 August 1879, the Land League of Mayo was founded in Castlebar,[38] at which point the first overtures were made to the Catholic hierarchy.[39] From September, priests quickly assumed leadership roles in the movement and presided over more than two thirds of the meetings in the rest of 1879. The movement continued to gain strength as the economic situation deteriorated.[40] Involvement of the clergy made it much more difficult for the British government to take action against the movement, which instilled "almost perfect unity" among Irish tenant farmers.[41] In several constituencies, Land League-backed candidates failed in the 1880 general election due to clerical opposition.[42]
On 21 October 1879, the land League of Mayo was superseded by the Irish National Land League based in Dublin, with Parnell made its president.[38] As the land agitation progressed, it was taken over by larger farmers and the centre of gravity shifted away from the distressed western districts.[43] In Mayo, the autumn potato harvest was only 1.4 tons per acre, less than half of the previous year.[44] At the Land League conference in April 1880, Parnell's program of conciliation with landlords was rejected in favour a demand for the abolition of "landlordism", promoted by Davitt and other radicals.[45] On 17 May, Parnell was elected to the presidency of the IPP.[46] Local chapters of the Land League frequently were formed from previous associations such as Tenants' Defence Associations or Farmers' Clubs, which decided to join the Land League because of the greater financial resources offered; this brought larger farmers and graziers into the movement.[47]
The league adopted the slogan "the land for the people", which was vague enough to be acceptable to Irish nationalists across the political spectrum.[38] For most of the tenant farmers, the slogan meant owning their own land. For smallholders on uneconomic holdings, especially in the congested western areas, it meant being granted larger holdings that their families had held previous to the Great Famine evictions. For radicals such as Michael Davitt, it meant land nationalization.[48] The fusion between land agitation and nationalist politics was based on the idea that the land of Ireland rightfully belonged to the Irish people but had been stolen by English invaders who had foisted a foreign system of land tenure upon it.[49][50] Nominally, the Land League condemned large-scale grazing as improper use of land that rightfully belonged to tillage farmers. As investment in grazing land was the main vehicle of upward mobility for rural Catholics, the new Catholic grazier class was torn between its natural allegiance to Irish nationalism and its economic dependence on landlords to rent land for grazing. Many sided with the Land League, creating a mixed-class body whose actual economic interests conflicted. This further consolidated the nationalist nature of the Land League.[51]
The government set up the Land Commission in 1881 with quasi-judicial powers that eventually enabled most tenant farmers to buy freehold interests in their land.
Suppression (1881–1882)
After the
A genuine No Rent campaign was virtually impossible to organise, and many tenants were more interested in "putting the Land Act to the test". It further seemed that the Coercion Act, instead of banishing agrarian crime, had only intensified it. Although the League discouraged violence, agrarian crimes increased widely. For the ten months before the Land Act was passed (March–December 1880), the number of "outrages" were 2,379, but in the corresponding period of 1881 with the Act in full operation the numbers were 3,821. The figures to March 1882, with Parnell in jail, showed a continued increase.[53]
In April 1882 Parnell moved to make a deal with the government. The settlement, known as the Kilmainham Treaty, involved withdrawing the manifesto and undertaking to move against agrarian crime. By 2 May all internees were released from jail, Davitt on 6 May, the day of the Phoenix Park Murders. With the Land League still suppressed, Parnell resurrected it with much ceremony together with Davitt on 17 October, proclaimed as a new organisation called the Irish National League.[54]
Plan of Campaign (1886–1891)
Preceded by economic difficulties due to droughts in 1884 and 1887 as well as industrial depression in England causing shrinking markets,
In 1887 the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act 1887 was passed to deal with the offenses surrounding the Campaign.
After the 1881 and 1885 Land Reform Acts (see below), many Tory press commentators described the Plan of Campaign as an opportunistic and cynical method of revenge following the division of the Liberal Party and the rejection of the
The Campaign led on to events such as the
Later agitation
Between 1906 and 1909, smallholders seeking more land launched the
By the
Tactics
Land courts
Some of the Land League's local branches established arbitration courts in 1880 and 1881,[73] which were explicitly modelled on British courts.[74] Typically, the cases were heard by the executive committee, which would summon both parties, call witnesses, examine evidence presented by the parties, make the judgment and assign a penalty if the code had been broken. Sometimes, juries would be called from the local communities and the plaintiff occasionally acted as prosecutor. Despite the trappings of common-law procedure, American historian Donald Jordan emphasizes that the tribunals essentially were an extension of the local branch judging if its own rules had been violated.[75][76] These courts were described as a "shadow legal system" by British academic Frank Ledwidge.[77] According to historian Charles Townshend, the formation of courts was the "most unacceptable of all acts of defiance" committed by the Land League.[78] In 1881, Chief Secretary for Ireland William Edward Forster grumbled that Land League law was ascendant:
... all law rests on the power to punish its infraction. There being no such power in Ireland at the present time, I am forced to acknowledge that to a great extent, the ordinary law of the country is powerless; but the
unwritten law is powerful, because punishment is sure to follow its infraction.[79]
From 1882, the Irish National League organised courts to replace those of the earlier organisation. The key provisions forbade paying rent without abatements, taking over land from which a tenant had been evicted, and purchasing their holding under the 1885
Boycott
When a man takes a farm from which another has been evicted, you must shun him on the roadside when you meet him, you must shun him in the streets of the town, you must shun him at the shop-counter, you must shun him in the fair and at the marketplace, and even in the house of worship... you must shun him your detestation of the crime he has committed... if the population of a county in Ireland carry out this doctrine, that there will be no man ... [who would dare] to transgress your unwritten code of laws.
Charles Stewart Parnell, at Ennis meeting, 19 September 1880[83][84]
One of the Land League's main tactics was the famous
According to the Inspector General, boycotting "constituted a form of imprisonment for the victim who was isolated and separated from the rest of the community."[92] Larger farmers and landlords were better able to cope with a boycott, by weathering temporary loss of income, hiring scabs, or ordering supplies by mail.[92] While the effectiveness of boycotting has been disputed the phrase and tactic has passed into the language of non-violent action.[93]
Rent strike
Rent strikes were used as a means of pressuring landlords to reduce the rent. Withheld rents often went to a "defence fund" for legal representation in eviction cases and support for evicted families.[94] Rent strikes could also be effected in a Slowdown way, with paying a fraction now and promising more next week while making oneself unavailable, it could include obstacles for rent collectors, re-occupation of farms rented by evicted defaulters, etc. The Meaghers of Kilbury are credited as the inventors of this kind of tactics when they practiced it in January 1880. [95]
Violence
Contemporary opponents argued that the Land War amounted to an "organised campaign of terrorism". In his biography of Michael Davitt,
Agrarian outrages decreased significantly after the founding of the Irish National League in 1882, due to the latter's system of dispute resolution for agrarian issues which imposed boycotting as its most severe punishment.
Land Acts
The land question in Ireland was ultimately defused by a series of
The success of the Land Acts in reducing the
References
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- ^ McLaughlin 2015, p. 89.
- ^ Winstanley 2003, p. 5.
- ^ Winstanley 2003, p. 11.
- ^ Vaughan 1994, p. 218.
- ^ a b Bew 1979, p. 90.
- ^ Bew 1979, pp. 15, 74.
- ^ Bew 2007, p. 274.
- ^ Bull 1996, p. 35.
- ^ Bull 1996, pp. 51–52.
- ^ Guinnane & Miller 1997, p. 601.
- ^ Dooley 2014, p. 8.
- ^ a b Jackson 2010, p. 87.
- ^ a b Dooley 2014, p. 9.
- ^ Bew 2007, p. 296.
- ^ Vaughan 1994, p. 209.
- ^ Bew 2007, pp. 309–310.
- ^ Janis 2015, p. 24.
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- ^ Janis 2015, pp. 10–11.
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- ^ McLaughlin 2015, p. 88.
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- ^ Bull 1996, p. 86.
- ^ Jordan 1994, pp. 199, 217.
- ^ Kane 2011, p. 67.
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- ^ Jordan 1994, p. 224.
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- ^ Bew 1979, pp. 101, 126.
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- ^ Jordan 1998, pp. 149–150.
- ^ Bull 1996, p. 85.
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Print sources
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- Bew, Paul (1987). Conflict and Conciliation in Ireland, 1890–1910: Parnellites and Radical Agrarians. Oxford: ISBN 9780198227588.
- Bew, Paul (1988). "Sinn Fein, Agrarian Radicalism and the War of Independence, 1919–1921". In Boyce, David George (ed.). The Revolution in Ireland, 1879–1923. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. pp. 217–234. ISBN 9780717115563.
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{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: postscript (link - Casey, Brian (2018). Class and Community in Provincial Ireland, 1851–1914. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9783319711201.
- Clark, Samuel (2014) [1979]. Social Origins of the Irish Land War. Princeton: ISBN 9781400853526.
- Dooley, Terence (2014). "Land and the People". In )
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- Guinnane, Timothy W.; Miller, Ronald I. (1997). "The Limits to Land Reform: The Land Acts in Ireland, 1870–1909". Economic Development and Cultural Change. 45 (3). S2CID 17477539.
- Hansson, Heidi; Murphy, James H. (2014). "The Irish Land War and its Fictions". Fictions of the Irish Land War. Peter Lang. ISBN 9783034309998.
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- Jackson, Patrick (1997). Education Act Forster: A Political Biography of W.E. Forster (1818–1886). Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 9780838637135.
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- Jordan, Donald (1994). Land and Popular Politics in Ireland: County Mayo from the Plantation to the Land War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521466837.
- Jordan, Donald (1998). "The Irish National League and the 'Unwritten Law': Rural Protest and Nation-Building in Ireland 1882-1890". JSTOR 651224.
- Kane, Anne (2011). Constructing Irish National Identity: Discourse and Ritual during the Land War, 1879–1882. London: Springer. ISBN 9781137001160.
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- Laird, Heather (2005). Subversive Law in Ireland, 1879–1920: from Unwritten Law to Dáil Courts (PDF). Dublin: Four Courts Press. ISBN 9781851828760.
- Laird, Heather (2013). "Decentring the Irish Land War: Women, Politics and the Private Sphere". In Campbell, Fergus; Varley, Tony (eds.). Land Questions in Modern Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp. 175–193. ISBN 978-0-7190-7880-4.
- Ledwidge, Frank (2017). Rebel Law: Insurgents, Courts and Justice in Modern Conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9781849049238.
- McLaughlin, Eoin (2015). "Competing forms of cooperation? Land League, Land War and cooperation in Ireland, 1879 to 1914" (PDF). Agricultural History Review. 3: 81–112.
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- Winstanley, Michael J. (2003) [1984]. Ireland and the Land Question 1800–1922. Routledge. ISBN 9781135835538.
Web sources
- "Land League". A terrible beauty is born: The Easter Rising at 100. University of Delaware Library Exhibitions. 2016. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
Further reading
- Curtis, Lewis Perry (2015) [1963]. Coercion and Conciliation in Ireland 1880-1892. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9781400877003.
- Murphy, James H. (2014). Ireland's Czar: Gladstonian Government and the Lord Lieutenancies of the Red Earl Spencer, 1868-86. Dublin: University College Dublin Press. ISBN 9781906359812.
- O'Neill, Brian (1933), with introduction by Peadar O'Donnell, The War for the Land in Ireland. London: Martin Lawrence
- Walsh, Rachael; Fox O’Mahony, Lorna (1 March 2018). "Land law, property ideologies and the British–Irish relationship". Common Law World Review. 47 (1): 7–34. ISSN 1473-7795.
External links
- Landed estates database compiled by University College Galway