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Estate Commissioners Offices, Applications from Evicted Tenants, 1907

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Published in October 1907 under the auspices of the Estates Commissioners' Offices this publication records lists of persons who lodged applications with the Estates Commissioners either in person as the evicted tenant or by the representatives of the evicted tenant. The collection of information issued by the Estates Commissioners' Offices was originally issued in four separate collections, one for each of the four provinces of Ireland; the title page that introduces each of the four provincial parts of the publication reads as follows: List of Persons who have lodged Applications with the Estates Commissioners as Evicted Tenants, or as the representatives of Evicted Tenants, and who have been noted as suitable for holdings. In each instance the Reports provide the following details on each application made to the Estate Commissioners: The Registered Application number; the applicant's name and address; the name of the estate from which he or she was evicted; the townland address of the evictee; the extent of the evictee's former landholding in acres; the rent per annum paid by the tenant prior to eviction; the name of the occupier at the time of the application to the Commissioners; the circumstances of the applicant and additional observations. From a purely historical standpoint the four Reports presented here are amongst the last occasions of evicted tenants from landed estates in Ireland prior to Ireland's independence, compulsory purchase of landed estates and the exodus from Ireland of former landlords. From a genealogical standpoint this collection offers a list of thousands of tenants and their dependants in some of the most deprived parts of Ireland. However, it is perhaps as a social document that that Applications of Evicted Tenants has greatest use and this can most clearly be seen in columns 8 and 9: the circumstances of the applicant and additional observations. This can show by one example from an application made from an evicted tenant in Co. Cork. The evicted tenant formerly resided at Cliftengrange, Co. Cork and had leased 39 acres of land at Ballinvrinsig on the estate of a Mrs Cummins paying her the annual rent of £15. Application was made by the evicted tenant's mother who was at the time residing in America with a son and two daughters, the evictee, a 28-year-old single man being the only family member residing in Ireland. In some instances the evicted tenant was recorded as the sole income earner for a family with as many as 16 members. The Province of Ulster contains thirty-six pages, that of Leinster 43, Munster 80 and Connaught 49. By far the greatest number of applications were made from Munster and within this province the most applications were made by evicted tenants in Co. Cork. As a complete document the 'List of Persons who have lodged Applications with the Estates Commissioners as Evicted Tenants, or as the representatives of Evicted Tenants, and who have been noted as suitable for holdings' offers a fascinating insight into the conditions of rural tenants in Ireland just prior to independence.

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