Mary Fort House and The Bodyke Evictions

 

The Irish Land Question

Mary Fort House and The Bodyke Evictions

The Irish campaign of agrarian protest in Ireland during the latter half of the 19th century known as the Land War had three distinct phases. The first phase, lasting until 1882, witnessed a violent struggle between landlords and tenants, orchestrated by the tenants' rights organisation, the Land League. During the second phase, 1882-1891, a more subdued struggle called the Plan of Campaign was instigated. The final phase of agreement and settlement eventually led to tenant ownership through a series of Land Acts.

The Irish Land Question If the Land War began as a means of securing rent abatements, it evolved into a campaign against landlordism. In County Clare, the disturbances that took place on the Bodyke section of Colonel John O'Callaghan's estate during the 1880s, culminating in the notorious evictions of June 1887, form one of the most dramatic episodes of the entire Land War in Ireland.

The Bodyke evictions became a cause célèbre in the debate over the land question, a debate argued in the local and international press, and played a significant part in the overthrow of the prevailing land holding system in the country.