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 The Tenant Right League was a federation of local societies formed in History of Ireland (1801–1923), Ireland in the wake of the Great Famine (Ireland), Great Famine to check the power of landlords and advance the rights of tenant farmers. An i ...

in their campaign for

land reform Land reform is a form of agrarian reform involving the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

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 Tenure is a category of academic appointment existing in some countries. A tenured post is an indefinite academic appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances, such as financial exigency or program disco ...

—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 The Independent Irish Party (IIP) was the designation chosen by the 48 Members of the United Kingdom Parliament returned from Ireland with the endorsement of the Tenant Right League in the general election of 1852. The League had secured their ...

(1852–1858) and later the

Irish Parliamentary Party The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP; commonly called the Irish Party or the Home Rule Party) was formed in 1874 by Isaac Butt, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish national ...

during the

Land War The Land War ( ga, Cogadh na Talún) was a period of agrarian agitation in rural Ireland (then wholly part of the United Kingdom) that began in 1879. It may refer specifically to the first and most intense period of agitation between 1879 and 18 ...

(from 1878). They were conceded by the British Government in a series of

Irish Land Acts The Land Acts (officially Land Law (Ireland) Acts) were a series of measures to deal with the question of tenancy contracts and peasant proprietorship of land in Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Five such acts were introduced by ...

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