CCEA A-Level History 4010
England 1509–58AS Unit 1
England 1603–49AS Unit 1
Britain in the Age of Reform 1830–80AS Unit 1
Italy and Germany 1815–71AS Unit 1
Germany 1919–45AS Unit 1
Spain and Europe 1556–98AS Unit 2
The Ascendancy of France in Europe 1660–1714AS Unit 2
Ireland 1823–67AS Unit 2
France 1815–70AS Unit 2
Russia 1914–41AS Unit 2
Italy's Quest for Great Power Status 1871–1943AS Unit 2
Crown and Parliament in England 1625–1714A2 Unit 1
Ireland Under the Union 1800–1900A2 Unit 1
The Causes and Consequences of Great Power Conflict 1848–1945A2 Unit 1
The American Presidency 1901–2000A2 Unit 1
Clash of Ideologies in Europe 1900–2000A2 Unit 1
England 1558–1603A2 Unit 2
Ireland 1685–1714A2 Unit 2
Ireland 1778–1803A2 Unit 2
Partition of Ireland 1900–25A2 Unit 2
Ireland Under the Union 1800–1900
The power of the Irish landlord
- 3 things to know
- A2 Unit 1
Overview
The scale of landownership, rents and tenure, the role of the agent, and the political and social influence a great estate carried.
What you need to know
Answer each one before you reveal it.
How did the secret ballot change the landlords' political position?
How did the landlord's economic power reach the ordinary tenant?
Questions from this subtopic
Each one with the model answer underneath.
- 1
How concentrated was the ownership of Irish land in the nineteenth century?
Model answer
Almost the whole country belonged to a few thousand proprietors, and a small number of very great estates covered an enormous share of it, so the landed interest was a tiny fraction of the population.
- 2
How did the landlord's economic power reach the ordinary tenant?
Model answer
The landlord fixed the rent, granted or withheld a lease, decided whether an improving tenant would be compensated, and could evict at short notice, so the tenant's livelihood depended on his goodwill.
- 3
What was a middleman?
Model answer
A middleman was a speculator who took a long lease of a large block of land from the proprietor and sublet it in small parcels at a profit, adding a layer of rent without adding any improvement.
- 4
How did the position of the middleman change over the century?
Model answer
Middlemen were common before the Famine, when subdivision made subletting profitable, and largely disappeared afterwards as leases fell in and landlords dealt directly with fewer and larger tenants.
- 5
What political powers did landlords hold?
Model answer
Landlords sat on the grand juries that governed the counties, filled the commission of the peace, acted as ex-officio poor law guardians, and until 1872 could see how their tenants voted.
- 6
How did the secret ballot change the landlords' political position?
Model answer
The Ballot Act of 1872 made it impossible to know how a tenant had voted, and at the very next general election in 1874 fifty-nine Home Rule members were returned, which showed that the landed interest could no longer deliver Irish seats.
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