Irish Land Act 1887 (Balfour)
This was Lord Balfour’s major Land Act which came at the end of the Plan of Campaign agitation. It provided 33,000,000 sterling for land purchase but contained many complicated legal clauses so that it was not put fully into effect until amended five years later. At this point only 13,500,000 had been availed of. It substituted peasant proprietorship for dual ownership as the principle of land tenure. At the same time Balfour created the Congested Districts Board to deal with distress in the backward areas of the West of Ireland.
The act was amended by the 1896 Land Act increasing the amount available for purchase and removing the clauses which had made the Act unattractive. The Land Courts were empowered to sell 1,500 bankrupt estates to tenants. In all 47,000 holdings were bought out between 1891 and 1896.
Local Government was introduced two years later under the revolutionary Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 which in turn contributed to the success of the United Irish League (UIL) in the 1900 general election, laying the foundation for a lasting solution in the land question.
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