Although there may be little in the way of documentation about our 19th-century Irish farming ancestors, the same cannot be said about the landowners they paid rent to or worked the land for.
Infamy and eviction
Estates were often badly managed, and some of the more infamous landowners' appalling behaviour towards their tenants was widely reported. These reports, along with estate papers and incumbered estates sales documents can be a treasure trove of information, not just about the landowners, but also about those who lived off the land.
Click the images below to find out more
William Clements 1806
Aka the 3rd Earl of Leitrim or Lord Leitrim, he was murdered for his mistreatment of his Donegal tenants.
Murder of Dennis Mahon
In 1847, Mahon paid £4,000 for the emigration of 1,432 of his tenants to Canada – a quarter of whom died at sea.
Marcella Gerrard 1777
Wife of John Gerrard, responsible for the 1846 Ballinlass evictions, Marcella was the richest woman in Ireland upon his death.
Were your Irish ancestors tenants? If you know the name of their landowner, please add those details to the XO Chronicles. By connecting descendants of those that had the same landowner, we can find out more about who farmed the land and where they went to when they left.
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