The Tenant League

Above : Photo Of John Sadleir

As the new league therefore, scarcely at all diminished the grievances under w h the people suffered, the discontent continued to grow, and soon an outcry arose all over the country against the injustice of the Land over was accompanied by an insistent demand for their alteration. In the Northern Province a custom prevailed by which a tenant acquired what was called an ” interest ” in the land which he cultivated, and could dispose of this when he vacated the farm. The value of this ” Interest ” varied largely, according chiefly to the amount of ” unexhausted improvements ” made by the seller, but even when no improvements had been made, something was paid.

Above : Photo Of John Russell, Prime Minister At The Time

The famine had aggravated the land troubles, and evictions with all their attendant misery were terribly frequent. Much of this was due to the wanton greed of men who wished to re-let at higher rents the land whose value the toil of the poor peasants’ hands had increased. But there were also numbers of land¬lords, naturally humane and anxious to do justice, whose estates were so much in debt that, when the interest on the various mortgages and so forth were paid, there remained but the narrowest margin for their own use.