Today in 1903, was a mini revolution against the evil reign of Landlords in Ireland. The Wyndham Land Act swept into Irish law. John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, called it “the most substantial victory gained for centuries by the Irish race for the reconquest of the soil of Ireland by the people.” It bore the name of George Wyndham, the patrician Conservative who had become Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1900.
Wyndham had an eye for political theatre. In a bold gesture, he appointed Sir Antony MacDonnell, an Irish Catholic, as his Under-Secretary. The great breakthrough came in December 1902, when the Land Conference convened in the Mansion House. Across the table sat Redmond, William O’Brien, and Timothy Harrington for the cause of Tenants. Opposite them, Lord Dunraven and other grandees of the Landlord interest. It was an unlikely gathering of nationalist parliamentarians and aristocratic landlords, engaged in the delicate business of dismantling the system that had defined Irish rural life for centuries.
By January, they had agreed on 18 recommendations. Chief among them was the abolition of dual ownership. This was a hybrid halfway house of feudalism introduced by the 1881 Land Act in which the tenant tilled the soil but the landlord still held the title. Wyndham understood what the tenants wanted “to secure absolutely the fruits of their industry and enterprise” and he planned to give it to them.
The Land Purchase (Ireland) Act that emerged in August 1903 offered terms almost unthinkable a generation earlier. The Treasury would advance £100 million to tenants so they could purchase outright the land they worked. Repayments would be spread over 68.5 years at the low rate of 3.25 % making the yearly instalments cheaper than rent. Landlords who sold would receive a 12% bonus on the agreed price, a sweetener few could refuse.
The effect was immediate and incredible. By 1908, seven million acres had changed hands. The old landlord order, already weakened by decades of agitation, began to crumble in earnest. Wyndham himself, in a letter to Lord Dunraven that year, allowed himself a moment of optimism “I feel fairly confident that 1903 will mark an epoch in Irish history.”
And then for the sake of greed and ignorance the Irish managed to sell themselves once more in to chattel slavery and landlessness on their own ancestral land. Will we ever learn? Will there be a recognisable Ireland left to buy back? Buy the Dublin Time Machine a pint and support the DTM Book https://ko-fi.com/buchanandublintimemachine
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