'The Field' - Irish relationship to land.

MarchDub

Bannasidhe wrote: »

I see your Bradshaw and raise you a Foster

http://www.ricorso.net/rx/bibliogs/journals/Ir_Revw/tocs/ir_rev01.htm

:pac:

And that's the rub - but it's important to say that there is/was a debate otherwise a wrong impression is created about historic 'truth' and perceptions.

As for Foster - for want of a better link and too lazy to type out from my own sources.

http://www.atholbooks.org/extracts/foster_preface.php

After people have read this book, they might think that Roy Foster has given "revisionists" a bad name. Serious-minded revisionists may come to the view that their view of Irish history might be better served by a more cautious approach; that their project can be better served by a more earnest and scholarly method to the business in hand. But that is not how things happen in the real world.

Mr. Foster's 'methodology' was an essential part of the project—above all the understated attitude of intellectual superiority which permeates his pronouncements. Irish historians were meant to feel that the old certainties and assumptions were hopelessly inadequate and that the inherited body of national literature quite unreliable—and certainly unsuitable for transmission to a rising generation.

This sort of change of heart is not achieved with scholarly demonstrations. It is necessary to engage the emotions—and that is Roy Foster's trademark: readers are invited to feel contemptuous about Irish national ideology. A strong persona is projected with which readers can engage. It is not quite performance-art, but showmanship certainly is part of the methodology.

CDfm

MarchDub wrote: »

And that's the rub - but it's important to say that there is/was a debate otherwise a wrong impression is created about historic 'truth' and perceptions.

As for Foster - for want of a better link and too lazy to type out from my own sources.

http://www.atholbooks.org/extracts/foster_preface.php

Cool, ya mean history is about what really happened again.

Bannasidhe

MarchDub wrote: »

And that's the rub - but it's important to say that there is/was a debate otherwise a wrong impression is created about historic 'truth' and perceptions.

As for Foster - for want of a better link and too lazy to type out from my own sources.

http://www.atholbooks.org/extracts/foster_preface.php

Personally I can see pro's and con's in the arguments made by all sides in the debate - with the exception of Hart as I just couldn't support conclusions he reached which relied on testimony from unnamed sources - that's journalism, not history.

I prefer to rely on what the sources tell me - and I 'assume' a certain amount of spin within them so I always look for other sources which support/contradict.

I have been called both revisionist and anti-revisionist .

In reality, I am someone who was 'trained' by Ken Nicholls and I really just want to try and work out what the story on the ground was - as best as I can - without any of 'our' current agendas colouring my view.

Waaay back before I was even an undergrad I used to read what was written about events in Ireland in the Tudor period in the standard history books and began to wonder where the Irish were - they seemed to only feature when they came into contact with the English, and I thought that can't be right. They surely didn't disappear into some 'Celtic' twilight and remain there in a state of suspended animation until a Raleigh, Drake, Bingham etc galloped onto the scene. So, that's my motivation - I'm nosy about the ol ancestors and the lives they actually lived not the lives those with a religious/political agenda (nationalist or unionist) wanted them to have lived...

MarchDub

Just call me the grumpy guy who lives next door who thought the party was getting a bit out of control -

CDfm

MarchDub wrote: »

Just call me the grumpy guy who lives next door who thought the party was getting a bit out of control -

Nah MD , you are never grumpy, not ever, a proper little ray of sunshine you are, I hear the Sioux have named you "He who smiles too much"

slowburner

While perusing a (rather dull) book on the Boer war I was struck by the amount of hunting and shooting the British officers engaged in when not on duty.

Is it the case that much land in Ireland was consolidated by affluent British sportsmen to encompass game?

Adair and George Bingham come to mind.

Cardinal Richelieu

Is there any evidence that landlords treated their Irish tenants differently depending on location? Quite a few landlords of the Pale such as the Palmers of Kenure House had substantial holdings in the West.

pedroeibar1

slowburner wrote: »

While perusing a (rather dull) book on the Boer war I was struck by the amount of hunting and shooting the British officers engaged in when not on duty.

Is it the case that much land in Ireland was consolidated by affluent British sportsmen to encompass game?

Adair and George Bingham come to mind.

Officers were encouraged to shoot/hunt/play polo as it kept them fit and improved their horsemanship. The officer class usually came from younger sons of landed families, so they grew up with those activities. Tiger hunting in India, driven duck shoots, etc.

Some Victorian era English bought or inherited or foreclosed on estates here but AFAIK there is no evidence of land being amassed purely for sporting purposes – the sporting rights were just another asset contained in the deal just like the occasional advowson or right to a seat in Parliament.

Don’t confuse land ownership with ‘Sporting Rights’ which have distinct and separate ownership and do not always follow title to the land. There were cases of huge tracts of land being leased from head landlords by English ‘gentry’ solely to enable them to shoot & fish. Lands in Kerry (Landsdowne Estate) and Connemara (Clifden/Roundstone area, Ballinahinch) were particularly popular because of salmon and woodcock/snipe shooting. One reason people were evicted in the Highlands and in Donegal is due to the quarry – grouse – which needs special habitat, undisturbed by sheep or people. (Young heather shoots for food, old heather for shelter, hence the strip burning.)

After the break-up of the big estates under the Wyndham Acts, many landlords reserved the sporting rights and to this day they are held separately. Legally, most of the farmerss around me in Kerry do not have the right to shoot game on their own farms, as the sporting rights were withheld when their grandparents bought out the farms. They are owned by a city guy. It is one of the emotive issues that incurs wrath in rural life.
FWIW to shoot grouse last season in Scotland cost about £40,000 +20% VAT per day for 8 guns. That gave you about 200 brace, or £120 incl. VAT per bird.:eek:

slowburner

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

After the break-up of the big estates under the Wyndham Acts, many landlords reserved the sporting rights and to this day they are held separately. Legally, most of the farmerss around me in Kerry do not have the right to shoot game on their own farms, as the sporting rights were withheld when their grandparents bought out the farms. They are owned by a city guy.

Same here.

jonniebgood1

Bannasidhe wrote: »

So what to people think? Was Boycott the heartless b**tard who drove people to ruin in order to collect the rents we have been led to believe or was he the fall guy - set up by a local parish priest who he had thwarted as the focus hatred for a series of events Boycott himself was relatively uninvolved in?

This was an era of a massive shift in land ownership, the largest changes since the plantations were to follow on from Boycotts era. He does seem to come across as the manifestation of the problems with landlords (and their agents) and land ownership in Ireland.
This commentary on the help that Boycott received from the orange order is from the nli catalogue and was originally from the "Weekly Freeman", December 24th, 1881:

Published during the land war in Ireland, Erin is bound by the belt of "coercion" and is flogged by two Orangemen (one wearing a crown). The whips used by the Orangemen bear the words "Bigotry" and "Eviction". Gladstone in the background walks off with "constitution" under his arm. This cartoon is a reference to the relief mission composed of Orangemen recruited to save the crops of Captain Boycott.

http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000151987 The text under the image reads "A Terrible Emergency!
Surely it is not credible, that the Government, having tied up Erin and walked off with the Constitution, are going to leave her to the tender mercies of her foes! The above is a not remote possiblity."
So was it credible? This seems like a call for more land acts to protect the ordinary Irish tenants.

People in Ireland have a different attitude to land ownership than continental Europe for example. People want to own their property rather than rent it (the majority of people) and I wonder is it related to this or the plantations or both?

pedroeibar1

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

People in Ireland have a different attitude to land ownership than continental Europe for example. People want to own their property rather than rent it (the majority of people) and I wonder is it related to this or the plantations or both?

It's both plantation, confiscation, the 3 F's, etc. As a result there is an almost genetic fixation in Ireland on property ownership . One of the main reasons for the present mess.

jonniebgood1

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

It's both plantation, confiscation, the 3 F's, etc. As a result there is an almost genetic fixation in Ireland on property ownership . One of the main reasons for the present mess.

Bloody Cromwells fault!!! I was blaming the banks but I should have known

pedroeibar1

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Bloody Cromwells fault!!! I was blaming the banks but I should have known

No, JBG, I’m serious. I’m not excusing the banks, but simply stating that too many Irish people totally lost the plot during the Tiger years. The hubris was excessive and very noticeable to me when I came back to Ireland in the early 2000’s. Even people I knew growing up, when as children they shared one bathroom and often bathwater, as adults competed with the size of their ensuites and hot-tubs, not to mention going to spas to have hot stones rubbed on their plump ar$e$. Council houses in the swisher suburbs were selling for over a million. Prices in Ringsend were on a par with Manhattan. Too many Irish people ignored the fundamentals because they wanted to believe the guff and kept their collective heads in a dark place.
I saw what happened in the US in the 80’s, in Singapore in the 1990s and knew it was going to happen in Ireland. I did not expect it to be as bad as we now know, nor the Regulator to be technically / professionally inept, nor politicians (of all parties) to be asleep, nor senior bankers to be morally corrupt. Add to that the rating agencies and auditors that were more interested in fee income than honesty.
It is easy to point the finger at the banks, everyone needs a scapegoat; when Mansfield junior of Citiwest said he did not understand what a guarantee was, the nation pooh-poohed and laughed at him. On the radio all day today are parents who now are saying ‘We didn’t know that we were guaranteeing our son/daughter’s mortgage.’ Res ipsa loquitur

CDfm

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

It is easy to point the finger at the banks, everyone needs a scapegoat; when Mansfield junior of Citiwest said he did not understand what a guarantee was, the nation pooh-poohed and laughed at him. On the radio all day today are parents who now are saying ‘We didn’t know that we were guaranteeing our son/daughter’s mortgage.’ Res ipsa loquitur

Absolutely, sensible lending is based on multiples.3 times annual salary. or 2 1/2 joint salary.Average house prices were many times that.

The lenders who refused Pearse a mortgage understood that.

I saw what happened in the US in the 80’s, in Singapore in the 1990s and knew it was going to happen in Ireland. I did not expect it to be as bad as we now know, nor the Regulator to be technically / professionally inept, nor politicians (of all parties) to be asleep, nor senior bankers to be morally corrupt.

I agree with you totally here.

Its been years since I worked for a financial institution but I have done and economics is very simple. Ireland is a small open economy.

I especially agree with the highlighted part .

If you look at boards.ie politics & economics as being representative of the party political and interest group affiliations - you get some idea of the drivel which passes for policy. If I were to post today to discuss Marx on economics (which is what he did) very few would have an interest.

WT Cosgrave & to a lessor degree DeValera had a far greater grasp than any politician today. A publican/grocer and maths teacher.

It makes you think.

jonniebgood1

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

No, JBG, I’m serious. I’m not excusing the banks, but simply stating that too many Irish people totally lost the plot during the Tiger years.

I was only kidding, blaming Irelands recent problems on Cromwell would be convenient but is not a serious option. The recent problems are complex and wideranging.

CDfm wrote: »

If you look at boards.ie politics & economics as being representative of the party political and interest group affiliations - you get some idea of the drivel which passes for policy. If I were to post today to discuss Marx on economics (which is what he did) very few would have an interest.

WT Cosgrave & to a lessor degree DeValera had a far greater grasp than any politician today. A publican/grocer and maths teacher.

It makes you think.

I would love a thread on Marx in this forum to look at the influence that Marx has had on the wider world (it would perhaps be low interest to most but you never know?).

To come back to this thread though, the Boycott case is widely known. Do we have other cases that followed the example set with captain Boycott? Were they basing the protest on somewhere else or was it original?
The type of ostracisation used was revolutionary and most famously repeated in mass protests by Gandhi. He had learnt about the Boycott in Mayo during the Parnell trial re the Pigott forgeries (Gandhi and the mass movements, pg 93). Parnells famous speech in Ennis described exactly the means of this type of protest when trying to get the tenant farmers in Clare to organise Land leagues as people in other areas were doing:

I regret to say that the tenant farmers of the county Clare have been backward in organization up to the present time. You must take and band yourselves together in Land Leagues. Every town and village must have its own branch. You must know the circumstances of the holdings and of the tenures of the district over which the League has jurisdiction -,you must see that the principles of the Land League are inculcated.
......
Now, what are you to do to a tenant who bids for a farm from which another tenant has been evited ?

Several voices: Shoot him.

Mr. Parnell: I think I heard somebody say shoot him (cheers).

I wish to point out to you a very much better way -,a more Christian and charitable way, which will give the lost man an opportunity of repenting (laughter, and hear). 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 in the shop - you must shun him in the fairgreen and in the market place, and even in the place of worship, by leaving him alone, by putting him into a moral Coventry, by isolating him from the rest of his country as if he were the leper of old - you must show him your detestation of the crime has he committed.

If you do this, you may depend on it there will be no man so full of avarice, so lost to shame, as to dare the public opinion of all the right-thinking men in the county and transgress your unwritten code of laws. People are very much engaged at present in discussing the way in which the land question is to be settled, just the same as when a few years ago Irishmen were at each other's throats as to the sort of parliament we would have if we got one. I am always thinking it is better first to catch your hare before you decide how you are going to cook him (laughter). I would strongly recommend public men not to waste their breath too much in discussing how the land question is to be settled, but rather to help and encourage the people in making it, as I said just now, ripe for settlement (applause). When it is ripe for settlement you will probably have your choice as to how it shall be settled and I said a year ago that the land question would never be settled until the Irish landlords were just as anxious to have it settled as the Irish tenants (cheers ). http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/lili/personen/fleischmann/b_archsuse04/07_ni_prep_11.5.htm

This was Parnell in action. He was getting people ready for the type of protest that was new. It was before widespread unions in industrial situations. I can imagine a crowd gathered around listening to this speech and then joining together after hearing such a simple plan.

pedroeibar1

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

I
This was Parnell in action. He was getting people ready for the type of protest that was new. It was before widespread unions in industrial situations. I can imagine a crowd gathered around listening to this speech and then joining together after hearing such a simple plan.

It is interesting that Parnell chose Ennis. Clare, along with Limerick and Tipperary were the most violent counties in Ireland in the Famine years and there had been numerous high profile murders of those who took on evicted farms. That is why the Coercion Act of 1847 was introduced, under which the first assizes sat in Clonmel, then Limerick, then Ennis all in a matter of weeks, dodgy witnesses, chosen juries and hangings following all.
Additionally, between 1836 and 1844, the total number of persons sentenced to transportation in Clare was 161, a yearly average of scarcely 18. Then, from 1846 to 1850 the numbers were 24, 72, 104, 341 and 170. Those events and the stories surrounding them would be as plain to Parnell’s listeners as the events of Bloody Sunday to the people today in Derry.

CDfm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

I would love a thread on Marx in this forum to look at the influence that Marx has had on the wider world (it would perhaps be low interest to most but you never know?).

The american's view Marx as an economist and his socio-political idea's are different.

Marx himself lived quite well off benefactor's.

He was also of his time , democracy was not a popular form of government , so maybe you might have a popular discussion.

jonniebgood1

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

It is interesting that Parnell chose Ennis. Clare, along with Limerick and Tipperary were the most violent counties in Ireland in the Famine years and there had been numerous high profile murders of those who took on evicted farms.

The reason Parnell was in Clare seems to be that the Land league organisation there was falling behind other counties, he said as much in part of the speech.

The tenant farmers of Clare did organise into an effective land league. When the landlord Colonel O'Callaghan refused to lower rents in 1880 and the land league began a boycott on him. O'Callaghan had refused to reduce rents when asked to do so by tenants. There are good primary sources on the Clare county library page
ref;page 1 of 2 from letter from M. Hogan asking for reduced rent. text reads as follows

Sir
i cant be ever
thankful anought
to your honour
for your kindness
to me the times were
sow bad tis very
hard for a man of
a big family to pul
true I have a few
yearlings to sell
for your rent I was
keeping them
until the fair day of Scarriff
to trie to make
the most of them
as I lost two of the
same kind
I saw that your
honour was not
inclind to do me
anny harm as soon
as I make it twil not
rest one night in
my pocet plase god
when you shall havit
with many thanks
your ??? servant
Michael Hogan

However O'Callaghan would not agree and saw the boycott as a criminal act and pursued with evictions. These are the start of the Bodyke evictions. One of these was to result in the death of a tenant by police. This trouble was to continue on the estate of the Colonel into the future where he repeatedly evicted tenants and was very unpopular.
http://www.askaboutireland.ie/aai-files/assets/libraries/an-chomhairle-leabharlanna/learning-zone/clare/tenants-and-effigy-of-colonel-callaghan.jpg
This image shows tenants with an effigy of Colonel O'Callaghan several years later.

jonniebgood1

http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/bodyke_evictions/fairrent_medium.htm

Also regarding Colonel O'Callaghan this is a document showing the reduction of 35% after the 1881 Land act. At the bottom is a note mentioning that the landlord retains sporting rights over the land (as per pedroeibar previous post).

There are more primary sources on this case that document clearly how the tenant -landlord dificulties were never resolved. It would be better to link to http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/bodyke_evictions/disturbances_distress.htm to view these.

CDfm

An intersting link here.

http://www.landedestates.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/estate-show.jsp?id=2035

Captain Willie O'Shea was also a Landlord in the area and was pro the Land Acts as per this speech

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1880/jun/29/second-reading-adjourned-debate-on#S3V0253P0_18800629_HOC_70

And he had developed links with more extreme land activists' before Parnell took his moth.

pedroeibar1

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

................ It would be better to link to http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/bodyke_evictions/disturbances_distress.htm to view these.

I am a very regular browser of Clarelibrary site - much to the cost of domestic harmony .
A collateral branch of my paternal line had a run-in (and lost, badly) with the Westropps who intermarried with the O'Callaghans.

jonniebgood1

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

A collateral branch of my paternal line had a run-in (and lost, badly) with the Westropps who intermarried with the O'Callaghans.

I am nosey and I crave more detail about this (if thats not prying)? What type of run in?

pedroeibar1

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

I am nosey and I crave more detail about this (if thats not prying)? What type of run in?

It was a Famine-era dispute over a bit of bog. The Rev.Westropp claimed ownership of the bog, did not deny that my kinsman had been in posssession and at best implied that any rights held were only those of turbary. My kinsmen had been landowners there for a couple of centuries, so whether they had actual actual ownership or ownership through adverse possession is debatable. In those days a CoI cleric who also was a big landlord had no fear of a court case; in any event my guy died, so the row died with him.

pedroeibar1

xx

jonniebgood1

CDfm wrote: »

Captain Willie O'Shea was also a Landlord in the area and was pro the Land Acts as per this speech

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1880/jun/29/second-reading-adjourned-debate-on#S3V0253P0_18800629_HOC_70

And he had developed links with more extreme land activists' before Parnell took his moth.

It is always interesting to see landlords who were sympathetic to the tenants. I wonder were there many? I know we looked at O'Shea previously and he was influenced by Parnell but history seems to record him as of dubious character. It would seem to me that any Landlord who had the coviction to support land acts deserves some credit although of course I am mixing 2 differing agendas (his attitude as a landlord and his attitude as a scorned husband). From O'Sheas speech as per your link

As the proverbial tree escaped injury by bending to the storm, so landlords would do well to make some sacrifice now.

CDfm

I looked at the guy here

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056115564

Elsewhere I came across him mentioned in connection with clientism.

Off topic, Parnell's popularity does raise the question on how "catholic" people really were. Personally I think it is exaggerated.

jonniebgood1

CDfm wrote: »

Off topic, Parnell's popularity does raise the question on how "catholic" people really were. Personally I think it is exaggerated.

That is interesting. But I think once he adopted a popular cause people were not goin to shun him because of his religon. There have been prominent Protestant nationalists in many era's. The premise of the thread is the connection of the Irish to the land and Parnell was trying to help the people improve their rights to this land. How do we check how Catholic people were in the era of Parnell, its a good question?

CDfm

How do you work it out .

Mary Kenny does not always agree with Diarmuid Ferriter in his book Ocassions of Sin. Sex & Society in Modern Ireland.

She suggests" survival strategies" drove it in post famine society & calls the book " politically correct".

Ferriter does admit that we do need new “boundaries” of some kind, now that the old sexual controls are obsolete. It is for a new generation to decide what those boundaries will be. But in his condemnation of the past, he fails to understand that many social controls were what the neo-Darwinists call “survival strategies”. Post-Famine Irish society could, perhaps, only survive through the kind of sexual prudence – and sexual repression, too – which it imposed. As John Healy wrote so memorably in “Nineteen Acres” – these fragile dynasties wrenching an existence from the land simply could not afford to be thrown off course by heedlessness, fecklessness, or indeed any unregulated passion, let alone a life of hedonism. And Freud himself recognised the need for repression in Civilisation and Its Discontents. Without repressing the libido at certain points, there is no higher brain development: or, in the old Yiddish phrase – “When stands up the cock, then falls down the brain.”
A very diligently researched book from the Professor of History at UCD; but very much from the Politically Correct perspective, the impact, curiously, rather adding up to an old Irish lamentation: ochone agus ochone agus ochone! Weren’t we the most distressful country that ever yet was seen!


http://www.mary-kenny.com/published_articles/OCCASIONS-OF-SIN.htm

And there has been work done on venereal disease policy.

UCD School of History & Archives

Scoil na Staire agus na Cartlannaíochta UCD

Venereal Disease in Independent Ireland 1922-1953
Researcher: Dr Susannah Riordan

Independent Ireland inherited a scheme for the diagnosis and treatment of venereal diseases but the full implementation of this system of free clinics was prevented by civil unrest, the unwillingness of local authorities to participate and the parsimony of independent governments. In consequence venereal infection among the rural poor remained largely undiagnosed, untreated and under-recorded until the Emergency gave rise to increased rates of infection, rumours and localised venereal panics. Controlling venereal disease now became a priority for the newly reorganised health service but the decision to pursue moral rather than medical solutions was to prove futile. This work, based on extensive archival research, traces the evolution of venereal disease policy at national and local levels and the degree to which this was informed by discourses of class, gender and religion as well as by interest group politics. Two articles resulting from this research will appear in 2007, and will be followed by a monograph.

http://www.ucd.ie/historyarchives/research/schoolresearch/schofha_vd/

So where to look.

Bannasidhe

Bannasidhe wrote: »

So what to people think? Was Boycott the heartless b**tard who drove people to ruin in order to collect the rents we have been led to believe or was he the fall guy - set up by a local parish priest who he had thwarted as the focus hatred for a series of events Boycott himself was relatively uninvolved in?

History was written by DeValera and his buddies. The Irish History courses for primary and secondary schools is akin to brainwashing. We are taught to hate the British.

CDfm

Deleted User wrote: »

The Irish History courses for primary and secondary schools is akin to brainwashing. We are taught to hate the British.

OK, I agree with you on this, but did the British like the Irish ?