Land Is All That Matters: The Struggle That Shaped Irish History

by Myles Dungan

In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe everyone lived 'off the land' in one way or another. In Ireland, however, almost everyone lived 'on the land' as well. Agriculture was the only economic resource for the vast majority of the population outside the north-east of the country. Land was vital.

But most of it was owned by a class of Protestant, English and often aristocratic landlords. The dream of having more control over their farms, even of owning them, drove many of the most explosive conflicts in Irish history. Rebellions against British rule were rare, but savage outbreaks of murder related to resentments over land ownership, and draconian state repression, were a regular feature of Irish rural life. The struggle for the land was also crucial in driving support for Irish nationalist demands for Home Rule and independence.

In this sweeping, epic narrative, Myles Dungan examines two hundred years of agrarian conflict from the ruinous famine of 1741 to the eve of World War Two. It explores the pivotal moments that shaped Irish the rise of 'moonlighting', the infamous Whiteboys and Rightboys, the insurrection of Captain Rock, the Tithe War of 1831–36, the Great Famine of 1845 that devastated the country and drastically reduced the Irish population, and the Land War of 1878–1909, which ended by transferring almost all the landlords' holdings to their tenants. These events take place against the backdrop of prevailing British rule and stark class and wealth inequality.

Land Is All that Matters is a definitive, immersive story of the agrarian revolution that fundamentally shaped modern Ireland.

Genres: Nonfiction, Ireland, History

672 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 9, 2024

About the author

Dr. Myles Dungan (PhD Trinity College, Dublin, 2012) is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster and is also Programme Director of the annual Hinterland Festival in Kells, Co. Meath. He currently presents the weekly RTE Radio 1 programme The History Show, writes a weekly column (‘Fake Histories’) for the RTE Radio 1 Drivetime programme, and has worked as presenter of various RTE radio and TV programmes for the last thirty years (Five Seven Live, Rattlebag, Prime Time). He is an Adjunct Lecturer in the UCD School of History and is the recipient of two Fulbright Awards. He has taught Irish history in UCD, Trinity College and the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of more than a dozen books on Irish and American history (including Irish Voices from the Great War, How the Irish Won the West and Mr. Parnell’s Rottweiler). In 1985 he co-founded the Dublin Film Festival with film critic Michael Dwyer. He is now masquerading as a novelist

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley and Head of Zesus in exchange for an honest review.

No other issue has a larger impact on Irish life, culture and politics than land. It holds such importance that title of this book is not exaggeration, it's a fair description. For rural Ireland in the 19th and early 20th century, land was all that mattered. Despite this, this is the first Irish history book I've come across that focuses specifically on the land question, most other history books pay greater attention to the political struggle for Home Rule.

The Land War itself could fill a book, but the author went beyond this to cover a wide range of agrarian struggles from the late 17th century to the early 20th. The book bursts any illusions you might have of a peaceful Irish countryside, as it shows there was a long history of often brutal rural violence. It covers a wide range of secret societies such as the Ribbonmen, Oakboys and Steelboys who are not well known to the public.

The book avoids simplistic stereotypes such as the noble peasant fighting the greedy landlord. Instead it shows how hard it was to distinguish between ideological rural activists and criminal banditry. It's clear that in times of unrest, opportunists will seize the chance to serve their own interest. The book does not romantacise or glorify the violence, which was often vicious and petty. One shocking detail I learned about was the use of rape as a tactic in land disputes.

The book also highlights how we cannot lump all peasants together as if they all had the same interests. There were significant divisions between farm labourers, small farmers and large farmers, and between tillage and livestock farmers, that were as great if not greater than those between landlord and tenant. The book confronts the fact that political change is rarely sweeping or revolutionary, the various land agreements were compromises that took effect over decades and failed to fully achieve all their goals.

The reader certainly gets their money worth with this book as it covers a huge amount of information, yet maintains a readable and engaging style. The one exception is the chapter on ordinance surveys, which felt irrelevant and unnecessary. Otherwise, I found it a highly interesting read that taught me a lot I didn't know about an important topic that deserves more attention.

[Yvonne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting but at times quite a heavy read as there are a huge amount of details, facts and history. It is a good chunk of a book at nearly 700 pages, but what it does is provide a comprehensive look at the history of Ireland, living conditions, politics, land management and its role in the world. I read this book over a few weeks in between reading other books.

I have read a lot of history books and I do like to learn more, I have a basic understanding if Ireland, the troublers, famine, politics and factions. So I chose to read this with a look to understanding more about Ireland and its people. I did think this was a more academic format and in some ways I think I would have been better reading this in a physical format rather than on my Kindle.

The author definitely knows his stuff, this is soon evident as I read through the introduction. This book includes so many different topics that you, like me, may have touched on at school. The author expands on this and gives some great descriptions and the focus is on the land and how is was managed, who owned it and why there was uproar and uprisings.

This is a book that I really enjoyed, it is intense at times but it gives a brilliant account of life over centuries from the mid 1700s to the early 1900s. This is a good book for those wanting to know and learn more about Irelands lands and its history. It is one I would be happy to recommend.

[Joe O'Donnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want to understand Irish History, you first need to understand the struggle for ownership of the land of Ireland. That’s the central argument of Myles Dungan in the surprisingly entertaining “Land Is All That Matters”, his account of what he terms the “struggle that shaped Irish history” – the 300-year long land war. My surprise stems from how relentlessly despondent this period of Irish history can often seem, and how intimidatingly bulky a volume “Land Is All That Matters” appears (clocking in as it does at over 700 pages), but Dungan deals with the material with a lightness of touch. Covering comparatively violent eras characterised by rebellions, uprisings, and uncompromising land agitation, Dungan also has a ghoulish relish for a blood-spattered anecdote.

Writing throughout “Land Is All That Matters” with a welcome wryness, Myles Dungan debunks some of the more overly romantic myths that have sprouted around Ireland’s fight throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries for land reform (such as the notion of there consistently being a homogenous radicalised peasantry fighting to overthrow the yoke of the capitalist landlord class).

He is remarkably lucid on what might be an otherwise bewilderingly varied array of agrarian secret societies – from the Whiteboys and the Hearts of Oak, through to the Rockites and proto-Land League organisations like the Molly Maguires. And he throws new light on hitherto overlooked episodes in the history of land reform in Ireland, such as the horrifically bigoted harassment of Connemara migrants to the Meath Gaeltacht by local reactionaries in the 1930s.

Dungan would no doubt blanch at the term ‘revisionist’ being flung in his general direction, but throughout “Land Is All That Matters” he is careful to underplay the revolutionary or separatist intents of the lineage of land agitators (seeing most of them as being the consequences of “darwinism over marxism, evolution over revolution”). That analysis be overly conservative for many Irish Republicans, but Myles Dungan makes a strong case that the agrarian struggle in Ireland was every bit as important as the War of Independence in what is a lively and accessible book.

[John McGoldrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I should give a book such as this more time but I find myself irritated and distracted by the unnecessary tone of flippancy, punnert and ‘in the know’ use of ‘ish’. A bit of an own goal by the editor perhaps? I can see the case for leavening an often harrowing history with some humour, but could this have come from the selective use of more uplifting human stories rather than by the author inserting their personality in an unwonted fashion?
I may come back to it when in a better mood, but this has failed to grab me at present.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential read for anyone looking to understand why land has been so central to Irish history. Dungan does an excellent job of demonstrating the complexity of the land issue, while not getting bogged down in trying to cover every aspect of Irish history during the period. He also includes a wide variety of sources, making it easier for those looking to research this topic for themselves or who wish to examine certain periods in more detail.

[Bob Holden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad read but spoiled by the prentious use of obscure words and French and Latin phrases, without translation. Myles finds it hard to shrug off the pomposity learned in RTE I'm afraid.

[Eithne Murray · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a comprehensive study of the importance of land in Irish history. So detailed I got lost between Peep o Day boys, Captain Rock, Whiteboys, etc.

But that's a Me problem, not a book problem. Brain/interest wasn't enough.

However the writing style was not helpful. The chapter which really interested me was The Land War, but sentences like the following wore me down.
"Furthermore, the latter were found guilty, in the court of public opinion, of being anything but passive-aggressive opponents of Irish legislative independence. "

The reader needs to apply a Simone Biles level of mental gymnastics to parse that sentence. (Sorry. Florid language is contagious!) Once the hidden double negative - anything but - and the redundant subordinate clause, and the ambiguity of 'latter' are translated , you get

"Landlords were believed to be hostile to Home Rule. "

Three pages later you get "The sans culottes seethed and gave expression to their resentment at this turn of events by boosting the RIC statistics for agrarian outrages."

This sentence appears designed to show off the author's cleverality rather than convey information.

Who, specifically, are the sans culottes? Cottiers? Tenant farmers? Small farmers? It's an imprecise phrase, open to interpretation.

Please Myles, try something like 'The landless labourers/ cottiers rioted / maimed cows / attacked property as a result.' (Delete as appropriate).

It makes me wonder why his editor didn't stamp out these oratorical flourishes.

This saddens me because land is such an interesting topic and he appeared to have interesting things to say, especially about the Land War, but I just can't read it anymore.