Although the Land Commission officially ceased operations just 15 years ago, it was some 20 years earlier that it exited the Irish eye. However, the Commission is still very much in the psyche.

To give a sense of the enormity it had in the shaping of Irish agriculture, there are two key statistics.

Prior to the establishment of the Commission in 1881, 85% of the land in Ireland was owned by just 15% of the people and between 1922 and the end of the 1960s, the Commission had traded close to 1.3 million acres in the country.

One man, who said he would prefer not to be named, claims his family were “victims of the Commission”. In the 1960s, and as part of the country’s drive to bring people from the west on marginal lands into more productive lands in the east, the Commission carried out compulsory purchase orders (CPO).

This man’s family had 170 acres in Meath taken in the early 1960s and distributed among a number of farmers from the western seaboard. Large parts of the land were subsequently sold on within just a few years.

“The land was totally robbed from us. There were five children in the family. Three of us had to emigrate. One brother went to the UK, a sister went there as well. We all had to go abroad to get work because of this. If we had held on to the farm, it could have sustained an enterprise for the family,” he said.

For having their lands taken under the CPO, the Meath family were paid an annual bond of just 4% of the value of the rental market; in 1962 this was just £11.

“It was daylight robbery and a disgrace. The land was taken, we couldn’t do anything about it and then we were paid a pittance for the land,” he added.

Some of the 170 acres has subsequently gone on to make up part of the Drumconrath GAA club in Meath.

Conversely, there are those who benefited greatly from the Land Commission as it offered them the opportunity to own land for the first time. The British government, in establishing the Land Commission, put in place a fund of £70m to help tenants acquire lands from the owners. Within 40 years, 75% of the tenants had become landowners in their own right.

Sean Flanagan speaks highly of the role the Commission played in securing land for his family. His grandfather purchased the land from landlord Charles Raymond Pelly. The Pelly family owned large amounts of land in Roscommon, Sligo and Cork dating back to the 17th century. The land remains in the Flanagan family to this day.

“In 1908 the valuation records were revised and show that Pelly name was stroked off and replaced by the words: ‘In fee LAP’. This means that in 1908, John Flanagan became owner-occupier of his farm and that he acquired ownership through the Land Purchase Acts,” he said. “The Land Commission was a wonderful instrument, it allowed people like my grandfather the opportunity to own lands that they never would have prior to that.”