From Tenant Farmer to Land-Holder

The most common way that people became landholders in the 1900s was by purchasing the land under Wyndham’s Land Purchase Act in 1903. It created a new scheme for tenant land purchase, sale was not to be made compulsory, but attractive to both parties, based on the government paying the difference between the price offered by tenants and that demanded by landlords.

It differed from earlier legislation which initially advanced to tenants the sum necessary to purchase their holdings, repayable over a period of years on terms determined by an independent commission, while the Wyndham Act finished off landlordism control over tenants and made it easier for tenants to purchase land, facilitating the transfer of about 9 million acres (36,000 km2) up to 1914. By then 75% of occupiers were buying out their landlords under the 1903 Act and the later Augustine Birrell Land Purchase (Ireland) Act 1909 which extended the 1903 Act by allowing for the compulsory purchase of tenanted farmland by the Land Commission, but fell far short in its financial provisions. In all, under these pre-1921 Land Acts over 316,000 tenants purchased their holdings amounting to 11.5 million acres (47,000 km2) out of a total of 20 million acres (81,000 km2) in the country.

The Acts provided Irish tenant farmers with more rights than tenant farmers in the rest of the United Kingdom. Munster tenants availed of land purchase in exceptionally high numbers, encouraged by their Irish Land and Labour Association’s leader D. D. Sheehan after he and O'Brien established an Advisory Committee to mediate between landlords and tenants on purchase terms which produced a higher take-up of land purchase than in any other province.

If you want to check whether your ancestors bought under the Land Act, you should look at the Valuation Revision books in the Valuation Office in Dublin.  They are on-line now for Northern Ireland but for the Republic of Ireland at present you still need to consult the paper books in Dublin. Where a property was purchased under the Land Act, the year is usually recorded in the remarks column and the property is stamped “L.A.P” (Land Act Purchase) in purple ink. In addition, the landlord is deleted and the words “in fee” are inserted.  “In fee” meant you owned the property. To give you an idea, I have attached an example (taken from Valuation Revision records for Co Antrim) which shows Land Act properties purchased in 1914.

Thank you so much Elwyn.  I really appreciate the images.  Do you know if maps were a part of the documentation?

Based on early maps of Ballydoolough (attached) and Google ground level images of todays lanes in Ballydoolough (attached) is has been my goal to walk through that mile-square townland to feel what is was like to live there.  I never expected to know the exact spot but perhaps those records will describe a specific plot of land.  Based on those photos it is a beautiful spot.

In many cases the individual properties in Griffiths are shown on the accompanying Griffiths maps. However in this case, as you have probably noted, the whole townland was farmed in common by all the tenants, and the maps don’t number their houses individually. I can’t think of an easy way to work out where your specific family lived. The 1911 census does tell you the property had a roof made from either wood or thatch. (Thatch seems more likely in Galway). There were 2 to 4 rooms in the house and it had 3 windows at the front.

The house numbers in the censuses were just the enumerators private numbering system (which varied from census to census) and don’t bear any relation to Griffiths plot numbers or other sources. And the enumerators records were destroyed a long time ago. So no help there. You could try asking locally though with Lowry being quite a common name in the area, it's hard to say whether anyone will know the right property today. Might be fun finding out though.

I have found this thread very helpful. I have recently been researching my family tree. My late grandfather died in 1964. He left Donegal many years previously, after his parents had died and the rest of the family had emigrated to America. In both the 1901 and 1911 census he is recorded as the landholder, although not living in the property. (He moved to Scotland.)  Would this suggest that he bought the house and small amount of land? I have seen the land it is isolated and probably worth very little. If it did transpire by looking at records in Dublin that he had bought it, would the ownership of it not have reverted to the Irish State because of the time lapse and if not, would it be worth considering claiming the land at this very late stage?

Thank you,

Anne

Anne,

The Valuation Revision records in Dublin should tell you who owned the land your grandfather had in Donegal, up until the 1930s anyway. If he was renting, then it’ll show who the land owner was and if he had purchased it under the Land Act (or by any other means) then it will normally show that too. Usually there’s a purple stamp saying “L.A.P.” and a year, indicating the property had been bought under the Land Act, and the year that occurred.

In the event that no-one has taken possession of the land since his death (or earlier) it wouldn’t necessarily revert to the state. The state has powers to buy land compulsorily eg for a new road, and if someone is intestate with no heirs then ownership can also revert to the state, but as long as there is someone alive with a claim then the state is unlikely to be the owner.

Registering ownership of land in Ireland has only been compulsory since very recently, and so you may need to do a bit of work to establish ownership today.

Do you know he still owned it when he died? Perhaps he had sold it, knowing he was unlikely to use it again. Is there someone using it today? If so, how did that come about? Did they buy it or have they taken adverse possession of it? In which case they might have a legal claim if they have occupied it unchallenged for a certain period of time.

Obviously you need to consult a solicitor who knows about Irish land law and take their advice. I am sure that googling solicitors plus Donegal town or Letterkenny will throw some up.

For me, the starting point would be your grandfather’s death in 1964. Did he leave a will? If so, there may be a probate file in Scotland. What did the will say? Did he leave the land to anyone? If he didn’t, did he appoint a residual legatee? A residual legatee is the person who gets whatever’s left after all the other bequests are made. If he died intestate then his estate should have been disposed of in accordance with Scottish intestacy law (ie split between his children and any other eligible dependents). Chances are therefore that, whether they know it or not, the land in Donegal has passed to either a residual legatee or to his family under intestacy law.

This is what the Scotlandspeople site says about wills for someone who died in the 1960s:

Wills registered between 1925 and 1997 have not been digitised and may only be consulted in the Historical Search Room at the National Records of Scotland. The printed Calendar of Confirmations is the yearly index to these wills. See the National Records of Scotland's guide on wills and testaments for further information.

Since my original post of this thread I have come across a record of my great-aunt Kate's death at 79 in 1945 in Clonbur.  The registry describes her as a "retired land-holder and old age pensioner" who died in the presence of her niece. The cause says "old age" with "no medical attendant" so I assume Kate was living with her niece.  My only earlier record of Kate was from the 1910 census when she and her brother Martin were still living in their the family's Ballydoolough home a few years after the death of their father Peter.

Putting these two sources of information together; is it logical to assume that Kate bought the property when the law allowed and thereby became a "land-holder" of their plot.  And could one further assume that if she left the property to a sibling or niece - the location of the property would have been described in a will or earlier when she took possession.

I realize there are several assumptions made in this narrative.  But I would appreciate your feedback on how to interpret the term "retired land-holder" in the registry of Kate's death.  My goal is to narrow down the location of Peter Lowry's original home in the townland.  

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Sorry about the last post.  It was saved as a draft a while ago and I accidentally posted it.  It duplicates the first post.  Sorry about that.

If you want to see if she left a will the abstracts are on-line but you would need to pay the National Archives to copy the will itself. Note that sometimes probate wasn’t granted till 2 or more years after someone's death. So if you don't find her listed for 1945/1946, try a few years beyond that. Once you have located the date and location probate was granted, you can ask the National Archives for a copy.

http://www.cigo.ie/pages/guide-to-wills-and-administrations/

Thanks, Elwyn, for your very extensive reply. I will visit the relevant office in Edinburgh and then take if from there. 

The land won’t be of much value, to be honest.  I visited it for the first time in March of this year. As someone who is putting together the family tree it is all a bit of a mystery. Unfortunately, there is no one left of my parents’  generation who might have known something.

Many thanks again and very best wishes,

Anne

Since posting my earlier replies, I have discovered a little more about Land Holders from Dr William Roulston’s excellent new book: “Researching Farming Ancestors in Ireland.” The term Land Holder in Ireland meant someone with about one or two acres of land. So better off than a labourer but not big enough to be described as a farmer.

Testifying before a Royal Commission in 1886, Dr Grimshaw, the Registrar General of Ireland said: “ There is a very common return in the Census – “land holder”, a great number of the labourers return themselves as landholders – they won’t demean themselves by calling themselves labourers and they are not dignified enough to call themselves farmers.”

Thanks again, Elwyn. Very interesting, Anne