Although much of the recent writing on agrarian society in Ireland has concentrated on the peasantry, there also existed alongside the small farmers (and still exists today) another significant group of land occupiers. These were extensive farmers, commonly known as graziers or ranchers, who held large tracts of land and engaged in cattle and sheep grazing. In fact, certain areas of Ireland have been for generations mainly populated by graziers. They have been a cornerstone of the cattle and sheep industry, and thus a vital force in Ireland's agricultural economy. Their importance grew as the country shifted from a tillage- based to a pasture-based economy during the nineteenth century. Yet until now graziers have not been the subject of extensive study. Here David Seth Jones examines the ranching system and its role in the far-reaching political, social, and economic changes that overtook Ireland during the late eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. Much of his inquiry relates to the period from 1880 to 1914, which includes the rise of the so- called ""eleven-month system,"" the land war, the anti-grazier agitation, and the commencement of a program of land distribution. The first part of this study considers the economic characteristics of ranch farming, its development, and the origins and position of the grazier in the rural community. Particular attention is given to the graziers' dependence and influence upon the land market. The latter part of the book examines how they responded to and were affected by the struggle for land reform and land distribution, and it deals at length with the rise of the anti-grazier agitation after 1900 and the ensuing program of distribution of ranch land. The study concludes with an examination of why the graziers failed to gain acceptance in the Irish agrarian community. Drawing upon a wide range of sources, including rental and farm accounts and other personal records (diaries, letters, notebooks, daybooks, as well as many official documents), this long-awaited, highly original study sheds much-needed light on the important role of the graziers in Irish history. It will be valuable reading for both scholars and students of Irish economic, social, and political history. David Seth Jones earned a Ph.D. in politics from Queen's University of Belfast in 1977. For three years he served as a professional officer in the Department of Agriculture of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, and for a further three years was a university lecturer in southern Africa. He is now senior lecturer in political science at the National University of Singapore, where he has taught since 1982.

This collection of essays explores the nature and dynamics of Ireland's land questions during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and also the ways in which the Irish land question has been written about by historians. The book makes a vital contribution to the study of historiography by including for the first time the reflections of a group of prominent historians on their earlier work. These historians consider their influences and how their views have changed since the publication of their books, so that these essays provide an ethnographic study of historians' thoughts on the shelf-life of books exploring the way history is made. The book will be of interest to historians of modern Ireland, and those interested in the revisionist debate in Ireland, as well as to sociologists and anthropologists studying Ireland or rural societies.

This is a history of the Irish land question, surveying its evolution from the Famine to the eve of the Second World War. Arguably, the land question was even more urgent in the eyes of ordinary people than the national question, which indeed it came largely to subsume.

Although the policy has frequently been dismissed as either incoherent or inconsequential, it very nearly succeeded in its objectives and certainly brought about a profound transformation in the political, social, and economic landscape of Ireland."--BOOK JACKET.

The book centres on a mass family clearance of thirteen families from their homesteads in Rathcore, a small rural village situated in south county Meath. The circumstances surrounding those evictions bore all the hallmarks of extremely poor landlord-tenant relations. Central to an understanding of the period was a drastic fall in tillage farming practices throughout Ireland, and the corresponding expansion of livestock/grassland farming, particularly so, in the provinces of Munster and Leinster. This shift in agricultural land-use had serious implications for social structure all across post-famine Ireland. The 1865 Rathcore evictions aims to provide an insight into the whole complex nature of the landlord-tenant relationship in Rathcore, set to a backdrop and a period in time in which a trend facilitated by an expansion of land under grass was well under-way in County Meath from the mid-nineteenth century.

This book traces the evolution of the Irish economy since independence looking at how the state sought to shape, regulate and deregulate economic activity to deal with the challenges posed by the wider international environment.

Charles Stewart Parnell is the most enigmatic figure in Irish history. An Anglo-Irish landlord from a distinguished Wicklow family, he became the most unlikely leader of Irish nationalism imaginable. He hated the colour green. He was not a dynamic speaker. He was cold and aloof and lacked the popular touch. None the less, from the late 1870s until his fall and death in 1891, he held the whole of Ireland spellbound. He established Home Rule for Ireland – previously a taboo subject in British politics – at the centre of Westminster affairs and effectively created the modern Irish state in embryo. His fall was as dramatic as his rise. The affair with Mrs Katharine O'Shea, the mother of his three children, destroyed him. Ever since his fall and his premature death in 1891, Parnell has remained a remarkably potent symbol, particularly in times of crisis and conflict in Ireland. The myth has obscured the man and makes it difficult for us to see Parnell as he really was. Paul Bew presents a completely original interpretation of this fascinating and enigmatic man.