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Penal Laws - duration of leases

  • 25-09-2010 2:46pm
    #1
    convert
    Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 9,338 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    Have a quick question: I know that Catholics were prohibited from leasing property for longer than thirty-one years, whether the landlord was Catholic or Protestant.

    However, was a Protestant tenant able to lease land from a Catholic for longer than the thirty-one years?

    Now I know it wouldn't have been very common for a Protestant to lease land from a Catholic, but from some reading on the topic there were some Catholics who retained their land during the eighteenth century, and therefore must have rented property to a Protestant, but nobody seems to have addressed the duration of these kinds of leases.

    Does anyone know of a book which deals with this. I've tried all the standard texts like Connolly, McGrath, McDowell, Bartlett, Wall, etc. with no luck.


Comments

  • #2
    Denerick
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,488 ✭✭✭Denerick


    The commonest way a wealthy Catholic kept his land was by collaborating with friendly Protestants - I think in some cases this was gotten around by the gentry leasing their own land from Protestant friends, an entirely technical manoeuvre that got around many restrictions. (A good example if I remember correctly is Danial O'Connell's uncle ('Hunting-Cap') who utilised this method)

    There is some debate about to which extent the penal laws were actually enforced in some areas. Like everything else, local conditions varied greatly depending on the benevolence of the local Protestant establishment and the effective influence of Catholic magnates.

    Bartlett is good on this but don't discount some of the older scholars such as Lecky with his authoritative history of the 18th century. Dated, obviously, but still rich with insight. James Anthony Froude's 'The English in Ireland' is a great polemic and incredibly entertaining at times, a perfect stasis image of Victorian anti Catholicism at its very worst.


  • #3
    convert
    Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 9,338 Mod ✭✭✭✭convert


    I've come across quite a few examples of collusion in more recent texts, but no work, whether 'old' or 'new' mentions the question of Catholics leasing to Protestants and that's what I'm really curious about. I had wondered if somebody had come across something about it.


  • #4
    Denerick
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,488 ✭✭✭Denerick


    I'd be interested to know about that too, can't say I can recall any examples.


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