BACK PAGES:The control and ownership of land in Ireland continued to be a major issue into the 1960s – still an age of currency controls, customs checks, and different rules for foreigners and natives – with a growing concern about foreigners buying land in the country, as this report from 1963 indicates.
‘THE NEW invaders” is the name being mentioned more and more to describe those aliens who have come here since the war to buy tracts of Irish land.
In the past few weeks deputies of the various political parties have been voicing concern in the Dáil at the extent of purchases by these people and for a long time now many organisations have been protesting, mostly by means of resolution, but sometimes by more forceful methods. At least two members of the Catholic Hierarchy have raised their voices in condemnation of large-scale foreign purchases of agricultural land and the National Farmers’ Association has already carried out a survey to find out the extent of the “invasion.”
Last March the Minister for Finance, Dr Ryan, said that in the previous 12 months the sum involved in land purchases by foreigners was £1 million. Some time later the Minister for Lands, Moran, told the Dáil that from August 1961 up to May of this year a total of 142 properties had been sold or leased to non-nationals.
This involved 11,200 acres and, in addition to these, 2,242 acres were purchased for purposes other than agriculture. An additional 4,566 acres were acquired for other purposes, and these were exempted from the 25 per cent stamp duty which had been paid on the 11,200 acres.
Recently he had said that before 1961 land sales to foreigners ran, as far as could be gathered, at between 5,000 and 6,000 acres annually. The picture was still somewhat similar.
Last week it was said in the Dáil that 200,000 acres were bought by non-nationals since the last war. The national councils of Macra na Feirme and the NFA, which examined the position, have asked the Government to control all land purchases. The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association have complained that people with no roots in the country are taking over farms here, and fears of the undesirability of small numbers of foreigners controlling large tracts of land have been voiced even in the Dublin Junior Chamber of Commerce.
Then, in many parts of the country, there have been protests from various organisations, not all of them concerned with the land as much as with the restrictions the new purchasers sometimes put on customs of usage, principally through passage obstruction to seashore or scenic areas.
Very often the foreigners are oblivious to the fact that they are not welcome in a given area and it has been said that they have often made a purchase without being fully informed of this difficulty.
When asked, one such purchaser from Germany said that he thought the only difficulty in the way for anyone buying land here lay in the addition of the purchase price of 25 per cent. He said that he had never been made aware during his negotiations to buy that any unpleasantness might arise.
One person concerned with protests in the past said yesterday that too often the sale of a farm to a non-national has been signed before those living near it realised there was a possibility of it coming on the market.
The NFA believes that well over 12,000 - or double the average the Minister for Lands thinks – go into the hands of the stranger yearly.
This story is at http://url.ie/2y0l and access to the entire 150 years of The Irish Timeswill remain free at www.irishtimes.com/archive until December 13th.