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# Captain Moonlight: How The State Still Enables The British Aristocracy
- URL: https://aontachtmedia.ie/captain-moonlight-how-the-state-still-enables-the-british-aristocracy/
- Published: 2026-10-15T17:14:02.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-15T17:14:02.000Z
- Description: Over a hundred years later, large estates and the remaining landlord interests of families of British aristocratic origin still figure prominently in the Irish landscape and, in some cases, the rental economy.
- Author: Tadgh Ó Cuill-Maonlaí
- Tags: Critical Analysis

**Introduction**

The narrative and rhetoric of supposed liberty which attended the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922 was intended to signal a distancing from a colonial past. Land, the material basis of that past, was to be wrestled from the hands of a small Ascendancy class and put into the ownership of the people who worked it. Over a hundred years later, large estates and the remaining landlord interests of families of British aristocratic origin still figure prominently in the Irish landscape and, in some cases, the rental economy. The Colthurst family [still owns](https://landedestates.ie/estate/1940?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) the iconic Blarney Castle and elsewhere. The Duke of Devonshire [also owns](https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/lismore-lord-inherits-fathers-fortune/a/148990466.html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) Lismore Castle and [thousands of acres in County Waterford](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-05-15-tr-4263-story.html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie). These are not peculiarities in isolation. Rather, they represent a deeper continuity - the state has from its inception always accommodated, rather than erased, the property rights of the old British elite.

**Background**

Most tenanted farmland had been transferred to occupying farmers [by successive UK land acts](https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/452292?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), and the land question of the nineteenth century had been [largely settled](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/irish-historical-studies/article/abs/land-and-politics-in-independent-ireland-192348-the-case-for-reappraisal/762DAAD46727585FB75E2766D0136DF7?ref=aontachtmedia.ie). The only major obstacle left by 1922 was the survival of large untenanted estates, demesnes and residual superior interests. The immediate post-Civil War Land Act of 1923, introduced by the pro-Treaty Cumann na nGaedheal government, was presented as a settlement. It allowed for the c[ompulsory purchase of untenanted land and the completion of purchase for remaining tenants](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-65684388?ref=aontachtmedia.ie). However, the Act was narrowly drawn. Demesnes, home farms, and lands reserved for the personal use of the former proprietor, were secured to a great extent. Compensation was in land bonds which fluctuated in value. Rather than the disappearance of aristocratic ownership, the result was its contraction into more defensible cores.

**Notable Examples - Blarney and Lismore**

Sir George Conway Colthurst, sixth baronet, died in 1925 in possession of an estate that had once exceeded 31,000 acres in County Cork. The family’s connection to Blarney Castle dated from the mid-nineteenth century marriage of Sir George Conway Colthurst to Louisa Jane Jefferyes, whose ancestors had acquired the castle after its confiscation from the MacCarthy dynasty of Muskerry in the [aftermath of the Williamite wars](https://www.revisitinghistory.com/castles/ireland/blarney-castle/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie). It was [sold to the Hollow Blade Sword Company of London in April 1702](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/truth-behind-the-blarney-1.896922?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), but less than six months later it was sold to the Chief Justice of Ireland, Sir Richard Payne, who in two years sold it to the Governor of Cork, Sir James Jeffereys. By the early twentieth century, the Colthursts still controlled substantial acreage in the region. While much of the tenanted land was sold under the earlier land acts, the demesne and the castle remained. Today, Sir Charles St John Colthurst, tenth baronet, [continues to own and manage Blarney Castle](https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20105049.html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) and its associated grounds, a [global tourist attraction](https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-31008170.html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) that generates significant private revenue from a site whose historical title rests on seventeenth-century confiscation. In recent times, the Blarney Castle and Estate has benefited from state grants under its current ownership. In 2021, Queen Anne’s Tower at Blarney Castle [received a €50,000 grant](https://www.corkindependent.com/2021/05/06/funding-granted-for-six-heritage-projects/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) under the government’s Historic Structures Fund. The following year, a Lime Kiln on the Blarney Estate [received €78,237.97](https://www.thecork.ie/2022/04/19/lime-kiln-near-famous-blarney-castyle-will-receive-community-monument-fund-grant/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) under the Community Monuments Fund. The Blarney Walled Gardens [also benefited](https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/funding-announced-for-512-heritage-projects/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) from the Built Heritage Investment Scheme. Back in 2004, Sir Charles Colthurst successfully secured a court order to evict a man who had [lived for 44 years in a cottage](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/castle-landlord-wins-case-to-evict-tenant-of-44-years-1.1139568?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) on the Blarney Castle estate. Eight years later, he again asserted his landlord powers when he [refused permission](https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20187172.html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) for a St Patrick’s Day market on the village green - ground owned by the Colthurst family - prompting calls for the local authority to compulsory-purchase the famous district's square.

The pattern is clearer at Lismore. The [Cavendish family, Dukes of Devonshire](https://landedestates.ie/family/2602?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), inherited the Lismore estate in 1753 through the marriage of the future fourth Duke to Lady Charlotte Boyle, heiress of the Earls of Cork and Burlington. The Boyles themselves had acquired the lands from Sir Walter Raleigh. In the 1870s, the estates of the Dukes of Devonshire in Ireland exceeded 60,000 acres. After successive sales under the land acts, the core remained: Lismore Castle and several thousand acres of surrounding land and mountain commonage. Over the past couple of years, the estate proposed substantial increases in rents charged to [sheep farmers grazing the Knockmealdown Mountains commonage](https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/junior-minister-will-meet-waterford-hill-sheep-farmers-in-rent-dispute-with-duke-of-devonshire/a/145891300.html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie). Farmers reported rises that, in some cases, would [reach 900 per cent](https://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2026/0410/1567532-no-conversations-on-evictions-of-waterford-farmers-says-duke/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie). A side effect of marginal farmers not maintaining a tenancy on the Duke’s lands would include losing government grants, such as the [basic income support](https://www.thetimes.com/world/ireland-world/article/irish-farmers-win-back-subsidies-duke-of-devonshire-ptj9gb9n6?ref=aontachtmedia.ie). The dispute [drew public attention](https://www.thetimes.com/world/ireland-world/article/sheep-farmers-to-hit-dukes-lismore-estate-with-land-rent-protest-5qg6mhlpp?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) precisely because it made visible what had been allowed to continue: an English duke still functioning as landlord over Irish hill land more than a century after the establishment of administrative independence. In Mayfair, London, an antiquarian bookshop owned by the absentee landlord was picketed by [a small group of activists](https://avondhupress.ie/knockmealdown-rent-dispute-takes-to-london/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) brandishing a ‘Starry Plough’ flag. Appearing [in support of the farmers](https://www.thejournal.ie/duke-of-devonshire-farmers-2-7002663-Apr2026/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), some of the individuals were part of London’s Terence MacSwiney Commemoration Committee.

**Land is All that Matters**

A more diffuse but equally significant continuity is the survival of ground rents and superior leasehold interests. Ground rent is the residual payment due where the freehold of the land remains in different hands from the buildings erected upon it. Although the [Landlord and Tenant (Ground Rents) (No. 2) Act 1978](https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1978/act/16/enacted/en/html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) and [subsequent legislation](https://www.anphoblacht.com/contents/6197?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) created a statutory mechanism for tenants to [purchase](https://tailte.ie/services/ground-rents/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) the freehold, the system itself wasn’t abolished. The state continues to pay ground rents on a number of properties, including historic buildings in Dublin. [Figures released some years ago](https://web.archive.org/web/20180902151624/https://www.irishtimes.com/news/state-making-ground-rent-payments-on-53-properties-1.572436) showed the Office of Public Works (OPW) making payments in respect of more than fifty properties, some of them to aristocratic or quasi-aristocratic interests, such as the Earl of Pembroke and the Duke of Leinster. While the annual sums are often modest, the principle remains: the state still acknowledges superior title derived from these arrangements. Although the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009 abolished feudal tenure “[in so far as it survives](https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2009/act/27/section/9/enacted/en/html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie)” and prohibited the creation of any new fee farm grants, it expressly preserved existing ones. Section 12 provides that, notwithstanding [some circumstances](https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2009/act/27/section/11/enacted/en/html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie#sec11) as mentioned in Section 11, any fee simple held under a fee farm grant, and any associated fee farm rent, that existed at the commencement of the Act [continues as a legal estate or interest and may still be disposed of](https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2009/act/27/section/12/enacted/en/html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie).

Residual sporting rights, particularly private [fishing](https://www.munster-express.ie/duke-to-sell-fishing-rights/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) rights, form another enduring remnant of the old landlord system (such as the Duke of Devonshire’s rights in East Cork and Co. Waterford). Notable case law that is relevant today includes [*Neill v Duke of Devonshire (1882) 8 App Cas 135*](https://legalblog.ie/the-state/2/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), a House of Lords decision that remains the foundational authority for the Duke of Devonshire’s several fishery on the tidal River Blackwater. The Court upheld the Duke’s exclusive (several) fishery rights, finding that the paper title (tracing to grants associated with Sir Walter Raleigh and the Boyle/Cavendish succession), combined with long possession and enjoyment, raised a presumption that the fishery had been “put in defence” before Magna Carta. The decision confirmed that a private several fishery in tidal waters can exist if of pre-Magna Carta origin and that mere public use or intermittent interruption does not destroy the private right.

Later, [*Agnew & Anor v Barry \[2005\] IEHC 414*](https://www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IEHC/2005/414.html); affirmed by the Supreme Court in [*Agnew v Barry \[2009\] IESC 45*](https://www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IESC/2009/S45.html), concerning a several fishery on a stretch of the Blackwater that had previously formed part of the Devonshire/Lismore interests (later sold). The courts confirmed the plaintiffs’ title to the exclusive fishery, applied the presumption that ownership of a several fishery carries ownership of the riverbed, and held that abandonment requires more than mere non-use. The Supreme Court rejected claims of prescriptive rights based on long user where that user had been with permission. The judgments explicitly rely on and reaffirm *Neill v Duke of Devonshire*.

These decisions are the most significant reported authorities specifically involving (or derived from) the Devonshire Blackwater fishery rights. They illustrate the durability of private several fisheries even after the land-purchase acts and the creation of the contemporary state.

**Just Another Flag?**

These examples stand in stark contrast to the vision articulated by the most radical voices of the revolutionary period. James Connolly (himself [inspired by Fintan Lalor](https://cartlann.org/authors/james-fintan-lalor/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie)) had insisted that the national question and the land question were inseparable. Landlordism wasn’t merely a symptom of British rule; it was a form of class power that would survive the creation of a new state unless deliberately broken. In his writings, he [traced the origins of Ulster and Munster estates](https://marxistleninists.org/Reference/James%20Connolly/1913/08/forgot.htm?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) to successive confiscations and plantations, arguing that the social power of the aristocracy rested on stolen land. A state that changed the [colour of the flag and the letterbox](https://archive.org/details/ourowndevicesnat0000morr/page/n9/mode/2up?q=pillar) (a [critique examined](https://socialistworker.co.uk/in-depth/ken-loach-on-the-wind-that-shakes-the-barley/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) in Ken Loach’s Cannes-winning film ‘The Wind that Shakes the Barley’ - [filmed in rural West Cork](https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/artsandculture/arid-41888239.html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) and exploring the Anti-Treaty IRA, it starred [future Oscar-winning actor, Cillian Murphy](https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2024/0324/1439697-liam-cunningham-nearly-eloped-with-cillian-murphy/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie)), yet allowed such a system to prevail, would be a hollow victory (the painting of the letterbox green is [also shown](https://www.frg.ie/local-history/are-mailboxes-our-last-link-to-the-british-crown/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) in the movie ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’).

[Peadar O’Donnell](https://www.dib.ie/biography/odonnell-peadar-a6700?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), an IT&GWU activist and member of the Anti-Treaty IRA’s leadership (also being elected as an abstentionist TD for County Donegal from his jail cell), spent much of the 1920s and 1930s attempting to keep that programme alive. As [editor of 'An Phoblacht’](https://www.rte.ie/radio/doconone/646079-peader?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) and [organiser of the anti-annuities campaign](https://rupture.ie/articles/lesser-spotted-comrades-peadar-odonnell?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), he asserted that the land question hadn’t been closed by the 1923 Act. He decried how [small farmers were still burdened](https://dn711200.ca.archive.org/0/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.536586/2015.536586.The-War%5Ftext.pdf?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) by annuities payable ultimately to the British Exchequer; large untenanted holdings and demesnes remained; and the Free State government showed little appetite for further radical measures. While his campaign against the annuities [helped propel Fianna Fáil to power in 1932](https://historyireland.com/when-dev-defaulted-the-land-annuities-dispute-1926-38/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), yet even then the subsequent Land Acts stopped short of the thoroughgoing rebalancing that people such as he and [Liam Mellows](https://archive.org/details/liammellowsirish0000cdes) had envisaged. The residual aristocratic estates were largely preserved. When the [IRA-sponsored ‘Saor Éire’ political organisation](https://www.jstor.org/stable/23197224?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) was launched in 1931 (its [initial success](https://archive.org/details/nationalismsocia0000rump/page/92/mode/2up?q=%22September+1931%22) turning active units into local branches almost overnight), of which Peadar O’Donnell was a [founding member](https://www.leftarchive.ie/organisation/5944/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), it called for, in addition to the goal to “restore and foster Gaelic culture, language and pastimes,” the [abolition of landlordism](https://www.leftarchive.ie/workspace/documents/saor-eire-1931-1.pdf?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) in land, fisheries and minerals, and the vesting of these resources in the workers and working farmers through a mix of co-operative and state control. It called for the reorganisation of sea fisheries on a co-operative basis, financed by state credits, as part of a wider socialist-republican programme to complete a social revolution. Its constitution’s language [echoed that used](https://celt.ucc.ie/published/E900002-002/text001.html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) by James Connolly in ‘The Reconquest of Ireland.”

**Conclusion**

From the [desperate agrarian risings](https://www.rte.ie/culture/2024/0620/1455154-book-of-the-week-land-is-all-that-matters-by-myles-dungan/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) that once spoke through the cryptic signatures of [“Captain Rock” and “Captain Moonlight”](https://www.theirishstory.com/2014/03/27/did-captain-rock-spring-from-the-hedge-schools-popular-education-and-militant-politics-in-1820-ireland/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) \- the latter echoing in popular memory [through the Hollywood film](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPnvMlkA7oY&t=98s&ref=aontachtmedia.ie) ‘Far and Away’ (starring [Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/far-and-away-104909/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie)) - the people have long demanded an end to the dominion of landlordism. Yet a century after [the foundation of the State](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-british-studies/article/irish-free-stateeirerepublic-of-irelandireland-a-country-by-any-other-name/2C0024B54AB398985B3F2189BAA0A5BA?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) (albeit, a state whose constitutional foundations rested on Imperial legislation, as seen in [*Moore v. Attorney-General for the Irish Free State \[1935\] AC 484*](https://www.casemine.com/judgement/in/56b49624607dba348f016ef3?ref=aontachtmedia.ie)), one that, when convenient, [commemorates Pádraig Pearse and James Connolly](https://www.irishcentral.com/news/ireland-easter-rising-110th-anniversary?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), those same historic disparities are permitted to persist. Estates whose titles rest on confiscation and plantation still extract ground rents, control demesnes, monopolise fishing rights, and levy charges on the Irish small-farmer class. The irony is sharp: a state that sometimes elevates the authors of 'The Sovereign People’ (which [articulated Pearse’s openly left vision of land ownership](https://celt.ucc.ie/published/E900007-013/text002.html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie)) and republicans of days gone by continues to tolerate the very proprietary order those revolutionaries sought to extinguish.