THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD FOR IRELAND. 263 



Board's Inspector, writing- in May, 1 894, declared, " From an agricultural 

 point of view, Clare Island is not an inviting place. Nature did little for it, 

 and mankind has robbed it of all it could." The whole island was held in 

 randale ; no one knew where his land began or ended ; he only knevv^ that 

 he had certain grazing rights ov2r certain parts. There were no fences, and 

 the cattle strayed practically unrestrained, even over whatever arable 

 patches there were ; the holdings were wretchedly small, and over two years' 

 arrears of rent were due. The first work undertaken was the building, at 

 a cost of ;^i,6oo, of a strong stone wall, about five miles long, across the 

 island to separate the pasture from the tillage lands. This was necessary 

 as, owing to the fact that there were no fences, cattle and sheep roamed over 

 the whole island, and when the crop was in the ground the tillage land had 

 to be guarded against the cattle by the members of the tenants' families. 

 Under the supervision of the Board's- Inspector all this has been changed. 

 Cattle sheds have been built, main drains opened, holdings extended, the 

 striping carried out, and over fifty miles of fences constructed. The wages 

 earned by the islanders engaged on these works enabled them to pay their 

 rent, includmg the arrears : but now since these wages have ceased, the rent 

 has to be raised out of the holding itself. It is satisfactory to learn 

 from the last report of the Board that the tenants have paid every penny of 

 rent demanded from them during the four years they were the tenants of the 

 Board, and that it is expected that they will in future discharge the lighter 

 burden of purchase annuities, amounting to only £'^2^ a year, with equal 

 punctuality. A useful provision of the Land Purchase Acts which prohibits 

 the sub-division of a holding so long as any of the purchase-money remains 

 unpaid, will, it is hoped, check the propensity, so noticeable in the past, of 

 sub-dividing the land. 



Up to 1899 the Board had purchased estates to the extent of 25,000 acres, 

 and in that year they greatly extended the range 

 fpu rk'ii m + 4- o^ their operations in this direction by the purchase of 

 The Dillon Estate. ^^^^ j^^u^^ Y.s1^\.& of over 90,000 acres, chiefly in 

 County Mayo, for the sum of ^^290,000, which 

 amounted to sixteen years' purchase of the net rental. The tenants on this 

 estate number 4,200, of whom more than half pay rents of £\ or less, whilst a 

 still larger majority are migratory labourers whose holdings are too small to 

 support them. Most of the holdings consist of poor land, capable of con- 

 siderable improvement by reclamation, drainage, and improved methods of 

 husbandry. The first necessity was drainage, some thousands of acres of 

 low land being practically useless owing to constant flooding. The tenants 

 individually could not make the necessary main or arterial drains, or deepen 

 the beds of the rivers — such works could be carried out only by the owner 

 of the estate. In view of these circumstances the Board have conducted 

 extensive drainage operations, and by the expenditure of a few hundred 

 pounds the productive value of hundreds of acres in different parts of the 

 estate, has already been doubled. Although the progress made in the im- 

 provement works was such that a large number of holdings were ready for 

 sale towards the end of 1900, no purchase had been completed on the 

 31st March, 1 901, as many difficulties arose in connection with the preserva- 

 tion of the sporting rights — which should form a valuable asset of the newly 

 constituted peasant proprietors — the apportionment of turbary and other 

 questions ; but these difficulties have now been overcome and the re-settle- 

 ment of the Dillon Estate is well on the road to completion. 



