Ireland and the Land Question 1800-1922This pamphlet makes use of the most recent revisionist literature to reassess the view, much propagated by nationalist sources, that Ireland was a land of impoverished peasants oppressed by English laws and absentee English landlords. The land question has always been closely linked to the development of Irish national consciousness, and greatly exercised the minds of English politicians in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The author examines the nature of English understanding of Irish problems, which was often limited or ignorant, and attributes to it much of the unsound and ineffective ligislation passed. The book is concerned less with questions of English party politics than with the situation in Ireland itself and with the nature of the English response to it. |
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absentees access to land acres agrarian outrages arable Bessborough Commission British government cent Charles Kickham Connaught Conservative countryside decades decline demands domestic industry dominated Dublin economic emigration Encumbered Estates Act England English enjoyed especially evictions expansion extortionate rents famine favourable Fenian Gladstone Gladstone’s Gladstone’s Land graziers historians holdings Home Rule improve income increased increasingly investment Irish agriculture Irish Land Irish National Irish National League Irish Republican Brotherhood John Devoy labourers Land Act Land League Land Purchase land question land reform land tenure landlords landowners larger farmers leaders League’s legislation Leinster and Munster less Liberal major million nationalist movement nineteenth century O’Connell’s owner-occupancy Parnell pastoral farming peasant political potato pre-famine Ireland prosperity raise rents relied Repeal Association rural society security of tenure significant smallholders and cottiers smallholding economy social substantial tenant farmers tenant rights Ulster unrest Whiteboyism widespread Young Ireland