The tenant's
right was more than swallowed up by the increase of rent. This was done
so successfully that were it not for the Act of 1870, there would be no
trace of the Ulster custom left.
It has been the custom from the plantation times to let the tenants
build, clear, fence, improve, drain, on lands let low because they were
bare of improvement. The difference between what the land was worth when
the tenant got it, and what generations of thrifty outlay of time and
the means made it was the tenant's property, and the Ulster custom
allowed him to sell his right to his improvements to the highest bidder.
On some lands the tenant right was much more than the rent, as it should
be when it was made valuable by years and years of outlay; but
landlords, pinched for money, or greedy for money, naturally grudged
that this should be, and set themselves by office rules to nip and pick
the tenant right all away.
One great difference between the men of the lowland farms and the
Donegal Celt of the hills is that they have felt and treasured up the
remembrance of injustice since the settlement. Their lowland neighbors
never began to sympathize with them until they knew how it felt
themselves.
