New Library donated database: 1912 land purchases by tenants

[smcarberry]

The EPPI site likely has several years' worth of reports made in the early 1900s, as to land leaving the ownership of the old big estates and being purchased by former tenants in what appears to be assisted purchasing schemes. The enabling legislation is named, but I have not made a study of it. I was just happy to find my cousin John Donnellan acquiring property in 1912 that in 1849 was the subject of the eviction that forced my Donnellan family out of its home and led to our dispersal around the world. That entry is shown in the screenshot, so you can see what additional details are online on the EPPI site (link provided on the Library's webpage of the donated database).

The Library has wisely provided two versions of the donated database: one sorted by surname of the purchasing tenant and one by name of the estate which had held the property (in effect providing a place-oriented version). Here is the link to the 719 entries:

Land Purchases in County Clare, April – December 1912
http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclar ... s_1912.htm

I have now compared the reported purchase of 1912 to the cancelled land book entries sent to me by the Valuation Office, Dublin. Those pages can often be confusing as to the years involved, since the "Observations" column often just contains a year and no explanatory note. My pages for Clashduff show that John Donnellan was a tenant in 1902, and the next sheet has him owning in fee, with a year of 1911 shown. His total acreage is increased over the 1902 rented amount, so the purchase of "1912" on the EPPI site is reflected. Thereafter the total acreage stayed the same, so this was the "1912" purchase was his last one, at least in Clashduff (which is just outside the village of Kilkishen).

Hope this helps someone else's research as well. Not every estate is shown in this database but it does includes locations around the county, not just East Clare.

Sharon Carberry
USA

Clashduff land purchase, J.D., 1912.jpg (29.63 KiB) Viewed 19542 times

[Lucille]

Thank you very much Sharon, and Clare Library, for that work. Now all I need is to access eppi having found my names in the index. Is anyone else having a problem now with the eppi site?

Lucille

[smcarberry]

Yes, Lucille, when checking the link this morning after being informed of the database being online, I also tried the link on the Library wepbage and received an error message about the attempt to connect being "timed out." As you may be aware, others on the Forum have commented about the the EPPI site's being difficult, so I can only hope that there is a resolution in the future long enough for you to retrieve what you seek. I am very pleased to hear that you have some positive hits in the donated database.

S.C.

[Lucille]

With the EPPI site working again I was able to view the purchase details of the family farm, still held by cousins. I found it quite affecting that the same land that the family had been leasing since 1779 would now actually be owned by the family.

As Sharon said, there are several years' worth of reports on the EPPI site so if you have not found your family on the indexed list it might be worth going through the other years. Most years have a few hundred pages each, with Clare entries scattered at random, so I found it easier to download the report to PDF (several PDFs for most years) and then search for Clare, rather than flip through each page.

The whole scheme fascinated me so I decided to do some background research, so tune out now if you're not interested in the historical context

The 1903 Land Act, known as the Wyndham Act, followed many years of Nationalist agitation to achieve fairer land tenant/ownership for tenant farmers, while landlords' incomes from rents had been drastically reduced by previous Land Acts and by economic circumstances. At the same time the British government finally accepted that the situation was untenable and offered purchases on more generous terms than previously.

"The Act arranged for the sale of entire estates to the occupying tenantry ... engineered by money advanced by the state on low terms - repaid over 68 1/2 years at 3 1/4 per cent. The landlord was further tempted by a special bonus payment [12 percent] from the state on each sale." (R.F. Foster Modern Ireland 1600-1972 1988)

The purchase price was agreed between landlord and tenant, based on the existing rent multiplied by an agreed number of years. The Land Commission 'advanced' this sum to the tenant who repaid it over the next 68 1/2 years - at a rate of 3 1/4 percent of the purchase price annually. In effect the Land Commission paid this money directly, and upfront, to the landlord, in cash, along with the bonus.

In order to raise the necessary money the British government issued bonds .... shades of today's situation! and 'they' want to make History no longer obligatory on the secondary school curriculum!

Lucille

[smcarberry]

Thanks for the excellent synopsis of the underlying legislation, Lucille. I agree that studying what was happening a hundred years ago is very pertinent to the study of economics now and very relevant as noteworthy history.

Sharon C.

[Paddy Casey]

"......so tune out now if you're not interested in the historical context "Lucille

Definitely not, Lucille. Many thanks to you, Sharon, Paddy W. and the others for flagging and summarising these sources, the background legislation, etc.. For me, the family tree is just the skeleton. The social and economic histories of the times in which they lived are the meat.
Paddy

[Paddy Casey]

...... I also tried the link on the Library wepbage and received an error message about the attempt to connect being "timed out." As you may be aware, others on the Forum have commented about the the EPPI site's being difficult, so I can only hope that there is a resolution in the future long enough for you to retrieve what you seek.....
S.C.

A short while back I went to quite bit of trouble to contact the EPPI managers to find out whether there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. I located phone numbers, was passed from desk to desk, was told that my concerns would be relayed to someone whose name I can't remember at the moment and who, at each call, wasn't "in right now" etc. etc. I never heard anything back and my time budget on this matter ran out so, like you all, I'm just left hoping.
Paddy
P.S. I've just discovered that the EPPI search facility now recognises quote marks, e.g. "Return of Advances" and thus searches for phrases (which it didn't do last time I asked it to). Things are looking up. Mining the goldmine has become a little easier. P.

[pwaldron]

Other websites are now noticing the problems with http://www.dippam.ac.uk/, but this post suggests that the problems began only last week. It is now well over a year since the first reports of problems here.