The Irish campaign of agrarian protest in Ireland during the latter half of the 19th century known as the Land War had three distinct phases. The first phase, lasting until 1882, witnessed a violent struggle between landlords and tenants, orchestrated by the tenants’ rights organisation, the Land League. During the second phase, 1882-1891, a more subdued struggle called the Plan of Campaign was instigated. The final phase of agreement and settlement eventually led to tenant ownership through a series of Land Acts.
If the Land War began as a means of securing rent abatements, it evolved into a campaign against landlordism. In County Clare, the disturbances that took place on the Bodyke section of Colonel John O’Callaghan’s estate during the 1880s, culminating in the notorious evictions of June 1887, form one of the most dramatic episodes of the entire Land War in Ireland.
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