Craigmore and the Tenant Pledge
The immediate political issue was tenant right. In Ulster, custom often allowed a tenant to sell the goodwill of a holding and to receive recognition for improvements; elsewhere the position was much less secure and varied sharply from estate to estate. After the Famine, the question had acquired particular urgency. A farmer who had drained land, erected buildings or improved soil might lose both home and investment at the end of a tenancy. For labourers and holders of tiny plots, the wider pattern of consolidation and clearance after catastrophe made insecurity still more severe.