25/03/2026
Interesting contemporary account of 18th Century landlords in Ireland, as recorded by Arthur Young, an English agricultural improver who toured Ireland and worked as a land agent in the 1770s. He described them thus:
“Lazy, trifling, inattentive, negligent, slobbering, profligate. The landlord of an Irish estate, inhabited by Roman Catholics, is a sort of despot [….] speaking a language that is despised, professing a religion that is abhorred, and being disarmed, the poor find themselves in many cases slaves, even in the bosom of written liberty. A landlord in Ireland can scarcely invent an order which a servant, labourer or cottar dares to refuse to execute. Disrespect, or anything tending towards sauciness he may punish with his cane or his horse whip with the most perfect security; a poor man would have his bones broke if he offered to lift his hand in his own defence. Knocking down is spoken of in the country in a manner that makes an Englishman stare. Landlords of consequence have assured me that many of their cotters would think themselves honoured by having their wives and daughters sent for to the bed of their masters. It must strike the most careless traveller to see whole strings of cars whipped into a ditch by a gentleman’s footman to make way for his carriage. If they are overturned or broken into pieces, no matter, it is taken in patience. Were they to complain, they would perhaps be horsewhipped.”
