Struggle and strife on a Mayo estate, 1833-1903 The Nolans of Logboy and their tenants

Drawing on a wide range of Irish historical sources, this book reveals how the landlord and tenants on a Mayo estate responded to a series of crises during the Victorian era, dominated by the Famine and the Land War. In 1833, the debt-burdened estate of the Catholic Nolan family at Logboy was inherited by Edmond J. Nolan, a Dublin-based attorney. A benevolent landlord, he was forced to sell the estate after the Famine, when death and emigration had devastated the locality. The purchaser was his wealthy nephew, John Nolan Ferrall, who enjoyed a privileged lifestyle during the post-Famine economic recovery. But, when a confluence of misfortunes reduced Mayo tenants to poverty again in the late 1870s, the Logboy estate was targeted by organized land agitation led by Fenian activists and closely linked with agrarian unrest at nearby Irishtown. Although the landlord published his own radical solution to the land question in 1879, relations with his tenants deteriorated, resulting in violent confrontations and evictions. The murder of his bailiff in November 1881 was a turning point and he abandoned Logboy for good. After his death, the United Irish League took up the tenants' case until the Wyndham land act of 1903 finally enabled them to become landowners. (Series: Maynooth Studies in Local History -- Vol. 116)