Land Commission/Ownership over time

Remember dad telling me about case where husband died leaving wife and young family. Topclass farm couple of neighbours "agitated" that she would not be able to run it,family got shifted out of there own home and paid off with worthless land bonds . Sure cases similar to this happened all over.

My own family background would fall either side of the land commission. On my father's side his grandfather was a big cattle man in the 20s with a good few hundred acres and had bought an outfarm and borrowed to stock it just in time for Dev to start the economic war and he lost his shirt. Held on to the land but wasn't using it to its full potential (I think that was the term the LC used) and they took it and sub divided it into several farms that went to families from Kerry in the 30s. It was a very sore point for all of his children, who have all since died. They were given land bonds which matured in the early 70s and were worth a tiny fraction of what the land was.

My mothers side were beneficiaries many years later and moved from the west to a new place in Kildare in 1970. The farm here had been going backwards and had become run down and the LC claimed it. They took the bulk of it and split into 2 40 acre farms. My family got one and are still there but the guy that got the other one had it sold within 5 years! There were a few other small fields that went to local farmers. I don't know how that was decided but I'm sure there was plenty of political lobbying. The original landowners got a council cottage on 1 acre. There was ill feeling when they first moved up and my grandfather actually received an anonymous death threat that came to nothing thankfully but there was one or two neighbours who were very welcoming and that helped settle everything in and they were fully accepted in time.

My own feeling is that while there was a role for the LC at the foundation of the state to break up landlord estates I think they were left in place far too long and were given too much power. There's hundreds if not thousands of cases like the ones in this thread where decisions were clearly very unfair and while the curiosity in me would love to get into the LC archives the fallout could be massive!

"While those that actually got the land either didn’t farm it properly or their descendants simply let it or sold it on."

Bit of a generalisation.

And one I would completely disagree with in my limited experience of the mid-Meath region.

Majority of local land commission are dairy and flying.

Have an uncle-in-law came up from west in the late 50s or very early 60s.

Farm is now with his son milking approx 100, farm is 4 or 5 times size of that from LC. With approx 30 acres rented.

Well off the top of my head I can count 10 or 11 families. All still farming their LC lands. All from the west or south west. As above from kinda Kilbride up to slane.

I know the personal circumstances of 4 pre LC and it wasn't pretty. 10 acres of awful land in 14 fields type of thing. No electricity yet despite the whole east being electrified.

To hell or to Connaught really was tough and the large prodestant estates in mid meaty were rementants of the plantations. Maybe are still huge estates.

But as I say I'm only 40 and I'm sure there are plenty stories from the opposite viewpoint

You should be able to find this out by applying to the Valuation Office for the valuation records for the townland. These records show who bought what land from whom and when and for how much. I know in my family’s case the home place went from rented to owned in 1914, and there’s a stamp on the records saying it was a Land Act Transfer/Purchase

To apply for the records, you fill out the form (https://www.valoff.ie/en/archive-research/forms/c3-form.pdf) and send it to info@valoff.ie. They then come back with a quote to do the search which you pay over the phone. And then they actually go and do it, and send you the records. I think it cost about €30, and I included the name of the family in question, and asked for records from when they began to the 1930s. Wound up getting record for the whole townland. It makes for interesting reading!

I knocked across it on the genealogy forum on here and am glad I did! I should say that it’s about 5 years since I got records through it but looking at the website I don’t think the process has changed.