Irish Land Commission - Irish Land Acts

Irish Land Acts

On the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922, the Commission was reconstituted by the Land Law (Commission) Act, 1923, which also dissolved the Congested Districts Board. Provision was made for compulsory purchase of land owned by a non-Irish citizen. Untenanted land could now be compulsorily purchased and divided out to local families; this was applied unevenly across the country, with some large estates surviving if the owners could show that their land was being actively farmed.

From 1923 the amounts outstanding were paid to the British government as "land annuities", accruing in a Land Purchase Fund. This was fixed at £250,000 annually in 1925. In December 1925 William Cosgrave lamented that there were already: "250,000 occupiers of uneconomic holdings, the holdings of such a valuation as did not permit of a decent livelihood for the owners". Despite this, his government continued to subdivide larger landholdings, primarily to gain electoral support.

The Land Act 1933, passed on a vote of 70-39, allowed the Minister for Finance to divert the annuities for local government projects. This was a factor that caused the "Economic war" in 1933-38, and was mutually resolved by a one-off payment of £10m. to Britain in 1938. From 1932 the government argued strongly that Irish farmers should no longer be obliged for historic reasons to pay Britain for Irish land, but when Britain had passed out of the payment system it illogically still required farmers to continue to pay their annuities to it as before.

In 1983 the Commission ceased acquiring land; this signified the start of the end of the commission's reform of Irish land ownership, though freehold transfers of farmland still had to be signed off by the Commission into the 1990s. The commission was dissolved on March 31, 1999 by the Irish Land Commission (Dissolution) Act, 1992 and most of the remaining liabilities and assets were transferred to the Minister for Agriculture and Food. Many relevant historical records are held by the National Archives of Ireland.

The Commission, whilst often regarded as the champion of land ownership for those who used it, and social justice, was not without controversy. In particular its subdivision of land into uneconomic units has had a lasting effect, as well as the destruction of fine landlords' residences such as Monellan Castle and Shanbally Castle with Government approval. As farming became more mechanized from the 1930s foreign investment in commercial farms was discouraged, reducing overall farm output. Often the buyers found it hard to earn enough to live a good life, as found in the poems of Patrick Kavanagh. The Dáil reports from the 1920s to the 1960s frequently include questions about the division of former estates, and the acquisition of land with public finance on favourable terms for constituents via the Land Commission was understood as a way for politicians to gain electoral support.