Ghost of the Land War: Kerry’s New Eviction Crisis

Ireland’s housing crisis is often discussed in terms of rising rents, stalled supply and lengthening social housing lists. Yet the most immediate and brutal expression of that crisis for thousands of households is the Notice of Termination - the formal document that ends a tenancy and, in too many cases, pushes families toward emergency accommodation. Across County Kerry, the official figures from the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) show a clear and accelerating pattern over the past several years: notices of termination have risen sharply, with the majority now driven by landlords’ decisions, rather than any breach by the tenant. Kerry is no stranger to the trauma of eviction. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the county became synonymous with agrarian conflict and landlord power: in the 1880s it was regarded as one of the most disturbed parts of Ireland, marked by high levels of eviction, tenant resistance, poverty and violence. This had continued into the 1900s and beyond. Today, rural homelessness is an increasing challenge.

According to RTB data, the Board received 369 notices of termination relating to Kerry tenancies in 2024. In 2025 that figure rose to 488 - a 32 per cent increase. The quarterly breakdown for 2025 reveals a steady upward trajectory: 94 in the first quarter, 115 in the second, 136 in the third and 143 in the fourth. The acceleration continued into 2026. In the first quarter alone, the RTB received 185 notices for Kerry - almost double the 94 recorded in the same period of 2025 (a rise of approximately 97 per cent). The second quarter brought a further 113 notices, bringing the total for the first half of 2026 to 298. While the second-quarter figure was slightly lower than the corresponding period in 2025, the overall half-year volume remains at a markedly elevated level compared with earlier years.

Elsewhere in the state, the picture is more stark. RTB figures show that the number of notices of termination rose by 41 per cent in the twelve months to the end of 2025. In the fourth quarter of that year, 62 per cent of notices cited the landlord’s intention to sell the property as the reason for termination. There was an overall increase of 21 per cent in eviction notices in 2025, when compared to 2024. The same pattern of landlord exit through sale dominates the Kerry statistics and underlines that the majority of these terminations are “no-fault” - the tenant has not breached any obligation.

These notices are not simply abstract statistics. Focus Ireland research on the South-West region (Cork-Kerry) has identified no-fault notices of termination as one of the leading drivers of household presentations to emergency accommodation. In the second quarter of 2025, 18.6 per cent of households entering emergency accommodation in the region cited a no-fault Notice of Termination as the reason; together with exits from Direct Provision, these two factors accounted for roughly a quarter of all new presentations. Family homelessness in the South-West has risen by 120 per cent since 2021 and by more than 910 per cent since 2014, with children bearing a disproportionate share of the impact.

At the end of the first quarter of 2024, the RTB’s Profile of the Register recorded 5,634 private tenancies in Kerry (plus a smaller number of Approved Housing Body tenancies). Against that baseline, the volume of termination notices in 2025 and the first half of 2026 represents a significant churn in a relatively small rental market. The RTB has repeatedly emphasised that notices are self-reported by landlords and that the figures capture only those notices properly notified to the Board; they do not include illegal lock-outs, informal pressure to leave, or cases in which tenants simply abandon tenancies under the threat of eviction.

The legislative context has shifted. From 1 March 2026, controversial new rules (due to the belief that they would cause an increase in the cost of rents) introduced longer minimum tenancies, a 2 per cent rent cap and tighter restrictions on the grounds on which a landlord may terminate. However, the biggest residential landlord operating in the state, Ires Reit, informed investors that the changes would deliver a significant uplift in its rental income. It expected increased income from its tenancies, as it would be able to reset rents to market value between tenants. In the months leading up to that deadline, estate agents and local councillors in Kerry reported a surge in notices as landlords sought to exit the market before the new protections took effect. One County Councillor noted that notices of termination had become the predominant housing issue raised with her office, with rents up to 50 per cent higher than their previous agreements. Many of those who receive notices face the near-impossibility of securing alternative private rented accommodation at rents that HAP limits can cover. The rental market becomes ever more institutionalised. In its quarterly update for Q2 2026, the RTB reported that 56% of all private tenancies were provided by landlords with four or more tenancies, yet this group accounted for only 12% of private landlords. This is a number that’s ever-increasing.

Rent data reinforce the pressure. RTB figures for Kerry show that while rents for sitting tenants rose by around 4 per cent in a recent twelve-month window, rents on properties that changed hands rose by more than 16 per cent. New tenants therefore confront a market that is both tighter and more expensive precisely when existing tenancies are being terminated at higher rates. The combination - rising terminations concentrated on sales, limited alternative supply, and rents that outstrip support payments - creates a direct pipeline into homelessness services.

‘Vulture’ funds have also become notorious in Kerry. One county councillor aptly described them as “legalised mafias” and that they were “terrorising” people during a housing crisis. It’s believed that approximately 600 people in Kerry have had their mortgages sold to vulture funds, with many engaged in court proceedings. In 2024, MARS Capital Finance Ireland DAC applied to the High Court for an injunction to compel a number of people to leave a property at Rosehill Avenue, Firies (a relatively large village of 573 people in the middle of Kerry), in a long-running mortgage repossession case. The ‘vulture fund’ said attempts by the county sheriff to take possession of the property had been blocked, while one of the people named in the proceedings asserted she had a valid tenancy and denied the allegations against her. The judge adjourned the matter to allow the defendants time to answer the application. Additionally, in the somewhat sizeable tourist town of Killarney, south-east Co. Kerry, a major eviction controversy also arose in the past year. Home Club, a Dublin-based property management company acting on behalf of Xerico Ltd, an investment company registered in Cyprus, has served termination notices on 14 households at the Loreto Chapel Estate, also known as the Loreto Convent Estate, on the edge of Killarney. Xerico had 14 properties in the estate - ten houses and four apartments - purchased in 2019. The notices cited various grounds for the termination of the tenancies including proposed sales of properties and termination of part 4 tenancies. Among those affected were 15 children, 13 of whom were pupils at the local primary school. The lack of affordable rental accommodation in Killarney sparked protests and calls for Government intervention, as residents said they had little choice but to look for alternative homes. Kerry County Council asserted that it was looking at options, including tenant-in-situ and cost-rental schemes, but any purchase by the council would depend on the willingness of the owner to sell. The case was of considerable local and statewide interest because of the possible effect on families, children's education and the wider community. In another instance, a Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) tribunal ordered two tenants who had lived in a house in the Killarney-Kenmare area of south-east Kerry since 2003 to leave the property within 28 days and to pay €12,600 in rent arrears. The landlord, who wished to sell the house after her husband’s death, said the tenants hadn’t vacated despite being issued with a notice to quit; the tenants asserted that they had nowhere else to go and were on the local authority’s housing list, but also raised concerns about the water supply and the legality of rent increases. The tribunal found in the landlord’s favour that the tenants had no right to withhold rent over the water-supply issue.

The RTB’s own dispute-resolution statistics and independent analysis (drawing on RTB determination orders over the past decade) shows that only a small fraction of notices are ever formally challenged and that the proportion of terminations linked to company landlords and institutional investors has grown. In Kerry, as elsewhere, the private rental sector remains dominated by smaller landlords, yet the overall direction of travel is toward greater precarity for tenants. Notices of termination are the legal mechanism through which that precarity is brutally enforced.

This situation’s parallels with Kerry’s tragic past is very difficult to ignore. A county that once endured the systematic clearances and insecurity of the landlord system during the Land War and earlier Famine-era dispossessions is again seeing families removed from their homes through formal notices of termination - this time under the pressure of a private rental market, rather than the old estate system or Land Commission.