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Landlords

 
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pflanagan132



Joined: 27 May 2007
Posts: 40
Location: dublin

PostPosted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 11:53 am    Post subject: Landlords Reply with quote

Can anybody please tell me when, and in what circumstances, landlords such as Lord Crofton, Henry Mahon, etc.,handed over ownership of land to their tenants. Thank you
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ElphinBill



Joined: 11 Sep 2006
Posts: 12
Location: USA

PostPosted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 8:58 pm    Post subject: Re: Landlords Reply with quote

The transfer of land was not directly from the landlord to the tenant.

The Irish Land Commission was established in the 1880s.
It continued well into the 20th century. It lent money to tenants to buy the land and the Commission handled the transfer. The landlord was paid the full amount directly by the Commission.

Many landlords had large debts at this time and welcomed the chance to sell off some of their lands and at the same time be paid in full by the Crown in sterling.

The Mahon transfers that I am personally aware of occurred in November 1899. The transfers for an entire townland were done on the same day. My family lived on Mahon lands north
of Strokestown. All tenant farmers in that townland became land owners on the same day. I assume the Mahon's sold off their interest in entire townlands in this manner. This makes sense because most of the parcels were small acreage

The cost of the land was small by today's norms, but I am
sure it was a fortune to them. After decades of paying high rents, they jumped at the chance to own their own land. For example a parcel of 12 acres of farmland near Elphin was 100 pounds total. It was payable in semi annual payments with a small interest charge.

Many tenants had trouble making the payments, and the loans were eventually written off by the Irish government, some after being on the books for 65 years.
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pflanagan132



Joined: 27 May 2007
Posts: 40
Location: dublin

PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 10:54 am    Post subject: Landlords Reply with quote

Thank you Bill
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Jim Irvine



Joined: 14 Jan 2005
Posts: 59
Location: Liverpool, England

PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 6:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A very useful organisation is the Irish Valuation Office in Dublin. They continued the valuation work started by the Griffith's Valuation around 1857.

If you contact them with a townland and family name (e.g. Conlon in Cloone townland, you can get the history of the family holdings in that townland down the years. Valuations were done every few years or so and the name of the land-holder is given.

There is also a very nice A4 coloured map centred on the townland. This is based on the Griffith's map and shows the various numbered holdings.

You do pay for this but as I recall it was not exorbitant for the amount of uAn example: the farmseful information. Something like £25 when I did it around 2005.

Anyway getting to the point, the date when the Land Purchase Act came into force for each piece of land is also given.

{An example is the farm held by my great aunt until her death in 1986. This property consisted of house, offices and land of 10 acres 36 perches. In 1857 it was held by a Thomas Conlon and leased from Guy Lloyd.

In 1860 (in the Valuation books) it was held by Honor Conlon (I think the daughter-in-law of Thomas?)

In 1878 the property is transferred to another Thomas Conlon. This ties in with a date of death for Honor Conlon of 1876 (parish death records and newspaper article). I assume this was her son Thomas who was born in around 1839?

In 1890 the property was held by the Representatives of Thomas Conlon although it was actually his sister who lived there until her death in 1917.

In 1914 the land was purchased under the Land Purchase Act and in 1918 the property was transferred to Mary Conlon (my great aunt) the niece of Tom Conlon.}
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hm



Joined: 31 Aug 2007
Posts: 3
Location: Auckland NZ

PostPosted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 12:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

On this subject, or very slightly off it (!) does anyone know anything about 3 generation tenancies?
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Andrew Garrick



Joined: 25 Feb 2007
Posts: 15
Location: Northumberland, UK

PostPosted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 5:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've not heard that exact term but it could refer to a "lease of 3 lives". These were quite common before the Famine - basically a lease that lasted as long as the three people named in it remained alive. Often, this would be the tenant and two named descendants of his.

They were usually held by middlemen or larger tenants, and seemed to go out of fashion by the middle of the 19 century.
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barryb80



Joined: 14 Jan 2005
Posts: 12
Location: London

PostPosted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 2:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My great grand father built his own house in 1909 and as I seem to recall this was because that in this year an Act was passed that gave people far greater security of tenure over their holdings and removed the fear that if they improved a holding they would either be thrown out or have the rent doubled. Possibly the Encumbered Estates Act.
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Brian Barry
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Jim Bohan



Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 29
Location: Branford ct.

PostPosted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 12:30 am    Post subject: Landlords Reply with quote

I have noticed something in my research of the Bohan family in the Gorvagh area of the Parish of Mohill in County Leitrim. That is that all the Bohan families,, my own and many others all worked for the same landlord, Lord Crofton. If one maps the townlands out you can see the ownership ties by one landlord which by todays standards are vast areas. But they all worked for the same landlord, in various townlands.
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Andrew Garrick



Joined: 25 Feb 2007
Posts: 15
Location: Northumberland, UK

PostPosted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 11:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, I have noticed the same thing. I assume this is because when the agent wanted to re-let a holding that had come available, the easiest place to look was among the existing tenants (perhaps one who wanted to move, or was looking for a holding for a son about to be married).

BarryB80 - you are right, the laws you refer to are the various Land Acts between 1881 and 1909. They gave tenants the right to security of tenure if they kept up the rent, and fair compensation for improvements they had made when they left. They also made increasingly attractive financial deals available to fund the purchase through the Land Commission, and in some cases the right for the Government to force the sale.

The Encumbered Estates Court is something different - this was a process set up in the aftermath of the Famine in the 1850s whereby if an estate was hopelessly in debt (as many were) the creditors could force the sale of part or all of it to pay the debts. The records for this are in the National Archives of Ireland, I'm told.

There is a good book on all this by Terence Dooley - Sources for the History of Landed Estates in Ireland - covering not only the history but what records survive and where they are.
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morton1



Joined: 07 Apr 2008
Posts: 28
Location: London

PostPosted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 3:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The "lease for 3 lives" was still common on the large De Freyne estate in Roscommon even in the late 1880's and it seemed the most common means of tenants leasing their property/land.

William
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