Free sale, fixity of tenure, and fair rent, also known as the Three Fs, were a set of demands first issued by the
Tenant Right League in their campaign for
land reform in
Ireland from the 1850s. They were,
* Fair rent—meaning rent control: for the first time in the United Kingdom, fair rent would be decided by land courts, and not by the landlords;
* Free sale—meaning a tenant could sell the interest in his holding to an incoming tenant without landlord interference;
* Fixity of
tenure—meaning that a tenant could not be evicted if he had paid the rent.
Many historians argue that their absence contributed severely to the
Great Irish Famine
The Great Famine ( ga, an Gorta Mór ), also known within Ireland as the Great Hunger or simply the Famine and outside Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a ...
(1846–49), as it allowed the mass eviction of starving tenants. The Three Fs were campaigned for by a number of political movements, notably the
Independent Irish Party (1852–1858) and later the
Irish Parliamentary Party during the
Land War (from 1878). They were conceded by the British Government in a series of
Irish Land Acts enacted from the 1870s on, with essentially full implementation in the
Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881
The Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881 (44 & 45 Vict. c. 49) was the second Irish land act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1881.
Background
The Liberal government of William Ewart Gladstone had previously passed the Landlord and Ten ...
.
[Michael McDonnell]
Ireland and the Home Rule Movement.
Maunsel and Co., Dublin, 1908; page 61.
References
{{Land War
History of Ireland (1801–1923)
Land reform in Ireland
Landlord–tenant law
Rent regulation
Regulation in Ireland