Symposium: Peasant Movements and Land Agitation in Modern Ireland

ICHS 2026 Symposium: Peasant Movements and Land Agitation in Modern
Ireland,  Institute of Irish Studies, QUB, Saturday 11 April 2026,
9.30-4.00pm

For much of the modern period, the land question – access to land, ownership of land, and the right to hold and work it – stood at the centre of Irish political and social life. Disputes over land shaped communities, fuelled protest movements, influenced elections, and helped define ideas of justice, democracy, identity, and nationhood. From early plantation policies to the major land reforms of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the struggle over land left a lasting mark on Ireland and its diaspora.

Join us at Queen’s University Belfast for a one-day symposium exploring the history and legacy of the Irish land question. Bringing together historians and researchers from across Ireland and beyond, the event will examine how land shaped politics, society, and everyday life – and why it still matters today. The day will feature a series of talks, discussions, and opportunities to engage with new research on one of the most important themes in Irish history.

Speakers:

• Rowan Bianchi (Boston College), ‘The Rockites in County Limerick during the 1820s’
• Sean Connolly (QUB), ‘Was there really and “Irish Land Question”?’
• Terry Dunne (Indep.), ‘The Special Infantry Corps and agrarian agitation in Clare, 1923’
• Aidan Gilsenan (Maynooth), ‘The wounded soldiers of the Land war: the reinstatement of evicted tenants, 1891-1914’
• Peter Gray (QUB), ‘What happened at Holycross? The origins of the Irish Tenant League in Munster, 1847-50’
• Breandan Mac Suibhne (Galway), ‘What happened to this house? Brian Friel and his mother’s people, c.1660-1960’
• Marc Mulholland (Oxford), ‘The Rising of the Moon – an interpretation of peasant resistance’
• Constantin Torve (QUB), ‘“We can no longer exist under the yoke of our landlords or employers”: Agrarian protest and wage labour in the
• pre-Famine period’

Sophie Cooper (QUB) – Concluding remarks

All welcome in-person or online via Teams

Registration and further details available here:
https://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/IrishStudiesGateway/NewsandEvents/SymposiumPeasantMovementsandLandAgitationinModernIreland.html