Tenant farms

This lane was one of many that criss-crossed the countryside in the nineteenth century. The Griffiths Valuation of about 1862 identifies two farms along its length.[1] Robert Finlay rented 103 acres and James Barr rented 42 acres. Note the large fields, which are still much the same as they were then and tell the story of Lord Dufferin’s lifelong quest for land improvement in Ireland.

In 1847, whilst a student at Oxford University, the young Lord Dufferin had heard about the failure of the potato crop in Ireland the previous year and the ensuing stories of starvation and decided to investigate for himself by travelling to Skibbereen. He was appalled by what he saw and later wrote that “Dead bodies had lain putrefying in the midst of the sick remnants of their families, none strong enough to remove them, until the rats and decay made it difficult to recognize that they had been human beings”.[2]

That winter he also visited all of the tenant farmers on his 18,000 acres and concluded, in an address to them in August 1848 that, although confounded by what he had seen, he was never despairing. He reflected that nothing could resist time, management, and education; and that improvement, “once in progress acquires itself an innate power of motion, and if not in this, at all events in the next generation, the whole tone of people’s habits might be raised. Such, gentleman, is the kind of work that Irish landlords have now on their hands”.[3]

The combination of his experiences of Skibbereen and the tour of his estate left an indelible mark on Dufferin’s future career, as he witnessed discordance between landlords and their tenants on his travels across the empire. Meanwhile, he had misgivings about the Ulster Custom of land letting, which although ensuring security of tenure, also entitled an outgoing tenant to charge the incoming tenant for the improvements that he had made, thus depriving the landlord of any real interest in his own land. Dufferin was convinced that the tenant’s improvements should be the responsibility of the landlord, who should reimburse his tenant before agreeing a new rent with the incoming tenant. This would encourage the Landlord to take an active part in improving his own land and ensure good husbandry. He also advocated for arbitration if agreement could not be reached.[4]

Whilst Dufferin spent a small fortune creating his avenues and parks, he also spent large amounts proving his point by improving his land and amalgamating let farms whenever possible, even winning an award for his programme of drainage. Also, and to the despair of his land agent, he persisted in offering rent rebates, despite annual rent arrears of over £2,000. So, as the coffers emptied, by 1872 he had reluctantly decided to sell off all his let farms except those closest to Clandeboye, leaving him with a mere 5,000 acres, and many fewer headaches.[5] However, it is heartening to see from estate maps that the same families still rented these two farms for at least another thirty years.

[1] www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/ [2] Harold Nicholson, Helen's Tower (London: Constable and Co Ltd, 1937), 71.

[3] Sir Alfred Lyall, The life of the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1905), 62.

[4] Lyall, The life of the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava, 154.

[5] Andrew Gailey, The Lost Imperialist (London: John Murray, 2015), 116.