Land Commission, set up by the
Land Act of 1881 as a body charged with fixing rents that would be binding on landlord and tenant. It was also empowered to purchase estates with a view to transferring ownership to tenants, to whom it could advance a proportion of the purchase price by way of a loan. In accordance with the quasijudicial function of the body one or more of the commissioners had the status of a judge of the High Court. The Church Temporalities Commission charged with disposing of the property of the established church following
disestablishment had completed the bulk of its work by 1881: the land Commission now assumed its remaining functions and inherited its clerical personnel and headquarters.
With agrarain issues being so central to Irish public life the various functions of the Land Commission had a large political significance. It can be seen as a stabilizer in volatile circumstances, mediating change with an imperturbability unachievable by politicians increasingly susceptible to public pressures. Thus, in determining the thousands of cases referred to it in 1881 and 1882, the commission tacitly took ‘fair rent’ to mean ‘politically acceptable rent’ and was the main agent in the deflation of the
Land War.
Facilitating the transfer of land ownership from landlords to farmers under the terms of the Land Acts was to be the commission's largest area of activity. This transfer was one of the key socio‐political transformations of modern Irish history. The 1903 act assigned newly appointed members designated as ‘estates commissioners’ to specialize in this work. By 1921 the title deeds of most of the land of Ireland had been processed by the commission, the period of most intensive activity having begun with the 1903 act. This work resumed in the 1920s.
The distribution of land, as distinct from its ownership, was the third main area of commission activity and one likewise loaded with political implications. The commission was given powers of redistribution under the 1903 act but it was the acquisition of the functions of the
Congested Districts Board under the 1923 act that placed this work at the centre of the commission's activities. The same act gave wide powers for the compulsory acquisition of untenanted land anywhere in the state deemed necessary for relief of congestion. Redistribution took off in earnest in the 1930s as land prices plummeted and
de Valera's supporters looked to the fulfilment of his populist promises. The most eye‐catching of a number of measures taken was the transplantation of many thousands of migrants from western counties to small farms carved out of confiscated ranches in Cos. Kildare and Meath. This was an important piece of social engineering; it also amounted to piecemeal concession to a radical policy until (in the 1970s) the policy lost credibility. In 1984 the scope of the commission's activities was drastically cut back. The Land Commission (Dissolution) Act of 1992 tied up most of the loose ends.
Richard Vincent Comerford
