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The Struggle for the Land
Hardship
The Land War
The End of the Land WarGladstone brought in a number of new laws so that there would be fair rents. The tenants still could not afford the rents and there was still a lot of trouble. At last, the British government gave £150 million (€240 million) as a loan so that tenants could buy their farms from the landlords. This was the way that the trouble between landlords and tenants ended in 1903. Home ¦ Class Photographs ¦ Dates for Diary ¦ General Interest |Information ¦ Local History ¦ Newsletters ¦ Our Work ¦ Sporting Activities ¦ Useful Links ¦ Web Safety |
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Many people in
Ireland
were unhappy because the land which they were working was not their own. William
Gladstone, the British Prime Minister, passed a law in 1870 which said the Irish
people had some rights to their land as long as they could pay the rent.
Landlords often raised the rent and then the tenants could not afford to pay it.
The tenants were then put off the land. Farms got bigger because there were less
tenants. 
Between 1850 and 1870, the harvests were good. In the
late 1870s, the potato and corn crops failed again. There was a lot of hardship,
and a lot of evictions. This time the tenants said that they would not allow
themselves to be thrown off their lands. A man called Michael Davitt set up the
Land League to look for fair rents and to defend tenants who were being put off
their lands.
The Land League was set up all over
Ireland.
If rents were too high, the tenants did not pay at all. The Landlords tried to
evict them. The people who took over a farm were called “landgrabbers” and
were boycotted. This meant that other people in the area did not talk to them.
There was often violence, and the landlords were frightened. Also animals were
killed and crops destroyed.